


Orlando

by waxjism



Category: NSYNC
Genre: Genderswap, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-06-07
Updated: 2001-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-06 09:17:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waxjism/pseuds/waxjism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for rhys, happy birthday.<br/>thanks to lesasoja, laura and wendy for comments and beta.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Orlando

**Author's Note:**

> for rhys, happy birthday.  
> thanks to lesasoja, laura and wendy for comments and beta.

_I'm just a girl  
Lucky me _

 

Somehow, in the night, Justin has turned into a woman.

It's obvious to Chris from the start, mostly because Justin sleeps in his boxers, and he crashed on Chris' sofa the night before. Chris is raiding his fridge for breakfast when Justin comes running in, screaming. Wearing underwear and nothing else.

He still has muscular arms and ripped abs. They're not quite as muscular and ripped as they were the night before, but still. The breasts, though, are entirely new. Chris takes two steps backwards and bumps into the kitchen counter. "Fuck," he says. "Holy fuck."

Justin stares wildly at him. "I don't know what happened!" he shouts. "I just woke up, and. I didn't do anything!"

"You've got-- you're a chick," Chris says.

"You think I don't know?"

"You're a chick." He's looking at the floor, but that's way too close to Justin's legs, which seem a lot less bony and hairy now; he tries looking at the table, but he can't see past Justin's newly acquired, perky, fucking gorgeous rack.

"I'm not! I'm-- I'm. I just." Justin looks down at himself with a scowl, and Chris follows his look. He's a chick all right. "I'm not. I just have ... these," and he gestures at the evidence, and Chris looks.

"Um," he says. "Please, man. Put on some clothes."

 

They sit at the kitchen table. Justin is now wearing a loose t-shirt and a pair of Chris' jeans. The pants he wore the night before turned out to be too tight.

"I can't believe this," Justin says. He crosses his arms in front of his chest, flinches and uncrosses them. "Jesus."

"So. hmm. You're, like, all woman, then?"

"I don't know! I haven't had a complete physical done. I mean, maybe there's a couple of manly bits left somewhere around my. My. My kidneys! Maybe I have a male spleen. I don't know." He leans forward and buries his head in his hands. "Fuck! I can't do anything. They're just always - there. In the way. I can feel them all the time."

"What do you--" oh. Oh. "oh."

"Yeah."

"Maybe. Maybe you should, like. Spend a little time, um. Getting used to ... it. Them. All of it." Chris tries to pretend that didn't sound like he is picturing it in his mind. He's not. Really.

Justin looks up with his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Getting used to what?"

Chris is glad Justin's wearing that ratty tee. That way he doesn't have to fight his own wandering eyes. "You know."

"Don't even. It's not that fucking fun when it's your own body."

"Why not? Girls seem to like it okay. And face it, you got a good deal."

"I don't even wanna touch them."

"Dude, you should. They're yours! Twenty-four hours a day. Think of the possibilities." Chris isn't thinking of the possibilities, of course. No. not at all.

Justin looks down, his forehead creased a little. Chris stares at his face, tries to map the differences. His eyebrows are still straight, but they seem a little thinner. His nose is smaller. His mouth is fuller, even fuller than before. Than fucking yesterday. His jaw line is softer, maybe. He looks like himself, only ... less so. "I guess..." Justin says, hesitantly. "It's all just really, really weird. It feels like me, only it's not. I don't know." And he touches his chest - his breast - just a soft stroke, and Chris quickly looks away. He's sure he must be blushing wildly, because his face heats up in a flash, heats up so quickly he thinks he must be glowing with heat, and he glares at the stove as if it might tell him what to do next, because Justin's fucking gorgeous like this. He was gorgeous before, but it was a gorgeous a guy could ignore, because, well, a guy might remember a time when Justin was just a gangly, skinny scrap of a kid and that's good to remember when he grows up pretty and built like a sex-toy, but now he's a girl, still a sex-toy, but a girl sex-toy, and that's completely fucking impossible to ignore.

Justin looks up and Chris can meet his eyes, just barely. "I don't look like a drag queen, do I?" he asks. Not coyly; he's honestly worried about that.

"no," Chris says. "You're. You're--" Now he has to struggle under Justin's hopeful, blue gaze. "um. You're pretty. You're a pretty girl."

Justin's grin is the same. Stunning.

 

"I'm never going outside again," Justin says later, when they're sitting in the living room, trying to figure out what to do next. Justin's got his feet on the table. Chris is not looking at his legs.

"You'll have to, sooner or later."

"Jesus, I gotta get drunk. Like, right now."

"And you have to tell the guys. And, like, your mom."

"Oh, man. Britney," Justin groans and holds his head. "I don't know what to do."

They decide to call JC first. Justin seems daunted by the prospect of talking to Lance about this, and Joey's out of town. Chris calls. JC sounds sleepy, but then JC is always sleepy when he's not working.

"I'd come if you just told me what's up, Chris," he says.

"I'm not telling you on the phone, so just get your ass down here and shut up." Firm is the way with JC. If you let him blither on, you never get anything through. He doesn't respond to hints. Most of the time he doesn't even notice them.

 

JC blinks when he sees Justin, blinks and blinks and blinks, and for a second, Chris thinks he looks almost envious. The way he runs his eyes up and down Justin's legs and chest isn't so much lascivious as ... awed. "Man, you look great," JC says, finally. Not, "holy fuck, you're a girl!" or "Jesus Christ, what are we gonna do now?" or even "this is weird." Just, "I always knew you'd make a beautiful woman, Justin," and a soft little smile.

"Yeah?"

"Sure," JC says and hugs Justin, completely unselfconsciously. Chris hasn't dared touch Justin all day. There are just so many places that are off-limits now, but JC doesn't seem to care.

 

Joey and Lance arrive in the morning, and their reactions are a lot more predictable.

"Hey, Chris, who's your--" Joey says and after that, he just gapes for a while.

"You're doing a pretty good impression of a codfish," Chris says.

"That's Justin," Joey says.

"Yeah," Justin says, morosely.

Lance says nothing at all. For a long time.

"What?" Justin mutters just when Chris was pulling in a breath to do the same. Justin's scratching his elbows and ducking his head. Chris wants to put his arm around his shoulders like he usually does when Justin's nervous.

"We're gonna have to deal with this," Lance finally says. "I'm gonna call--"

"No!" Justin says, loudly. "No. Don't call anyone."

"Justin--"

"No."

"I think at least Nathan and There--"

"No."

"We can't just go on like nothing happened," Lance says in that very pointedly patient tone of voice that actually suggests that his patience is running out. "I mean, I don't think 'spontaneous sex change' would go over very well as an explanation for the sudden disappearance of ... of you."

"Well, that's what happened," Chris says. "Like, last night he was fine, and this morning it's 'holy spontaneous sex change, Timberlake!' I don't know what else you could call it."

Lance closes his eyes and rubs his forehead in a gesture that he's picked up from Johnny. "We need to think of something."

"Hello?" Chris shakes his hand in front of Lance's face. "Hello? He just turned into a woman! I think we're missing the real issue here."

"Which is what, exactly?" Lance says.

Silence.

"Um, I'm a woman," Justin says slowly.

"I can see that, Justin."

"Good," Justin says, louder than necessary. "Good. Cause I was thinking maybe you'd missed it. Like, maybe you didn't see my goddamn tits." Now Chris does put a hand on Justin, because they just don't need a fistfight right here in Justin's blindingly white living room. Justin is quivering under his hand, racehorse in the start box, Doberman on a tight leash.

"You just need some false ID, a birth certificate, and someone has to leak something to the press. Maybe something really subtle about rehab."

Everyone turns and stares at JC, who has, so far, been quietly reading what looks like the latest issue of Cosmopolitan.

"What? That's what they do on TV."

"Chasez saves the day," Chris says with awe. He's honestly feeling it. He hadn't been thinking anything constructive. "You know, JC, I don't show it enough, but I do love you. In fact, I think I might want to have your babies. A row of little Chasez-Kirkpatrick babies, all cute and dapper with big blue eyes and pretty--"

"Shut up, Chris," JC says, but he's smiling. Chris feels giddy now that Justin has relaxed and Lance is blinking owlishly at JC and there's a plan, and he skips over to the sofa and gives JC a big sloppy kiss. JC bats ineffectually at him. "Euuw, what are you doing? Get off me--"

"You're a sweetikins," Chris proclaims. "Gentlemen - and lady, sorry, J - let's get to work."

 

 

_Got her shit together  
But she just falls apart  
When the right people let her _

 

"Rhonda Marie!" Chris squeals when he opens the discreetly brown envelope and fishes out the contents. "Your name is Rhonda Marie Lloyd. Oh man, that's like, Rhonda Mariiiie, come make me a sammich, woman!"

"Shut up," Justin says and snatches the driver's license from Chris. The picture is hideous, of course. He looks like a starving child. And yes, Rhonda Marie is his name. "Fuck. I can't go around lettin' people call me Rhonda. That ain't right, yo."

"But it's so cute!" Chris says and pinches his cheek. "You so gosh-darned cute ah could eat you riight up, sweetiepie."

"Jesus, Chris, cut it out. I get that shit from everybody else, too, now. It's not funny." But of course he laughs a little, because it's a lot funnier when it's Chris. "Even the goddamn pizza delivery guy calls me sweetheart."

"Don't worry, sugar, I'll kick his ass for you."

 

They tell Justin's mother after three days.

"Oh, dear," she says. "I was hoping that wouldn't happen."

Justin won't take Britney's calls, so she just shows up one day, like they figured she would. She just pushes past Chris in the door and doesn't listen to his warnings.

 

 

_A friend with breasts and all the rest _

 

Britney curls her legs up under herself and is grateful for the thick sweater. She feels cold.

Justin sits in the chair across the coffee table. He's leaning his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. He still slouches just the same.

"So, like," he says, and his voice is almost the same. His. Hers. Its? Fuck. Fuck. "I just. I still don't know exactly what's going on, but I don't think it's. I don't know if it's permanent."

She's not going to answer. She hasn't spoken since he came in. She thinks she'll cry if she tries.

He's so beautiful.

She looks at the table. There's an issue of Cosmopolitan open, to a large, glossy picture of Claudia Schiffer. Justin is more beautiful than Claudia.

How do you tell your boyfriend you think he's a million times more attractive after a spontaneous sex change? He's wearing a loose sweater and ratty jeans that are too tight around the hips and too loose at the waist, and his hair is a tangled bush of frizzy curls, and she wants to touch him so bad that her insides clench.

"Brit, say something," he says. His face is just a little different, but enough. Different in all the right ways.

She clears her throat. It hurts, but it buys her another few seconds of time to get her mind to stop reeling.

He's been like this for seven days. She knows he wouldn't have told her this soon. She caught him by surprise.

She opens her mouth to say something. She has no idea what. Something reassuring. "You need to buy a bra," was not what she intended, but that's what she says.

He looks up sharply. "What?"

"And some jeans that fit. You're more ... hippy now."

"But--" He's confused, straightening up, frowning. "I'm a girl!" he says, helplessly.

"I can tell," she says, and it's easier now. To talk. Because he's looking exasperated and being a little annoying, and that's familiar.

"My. I don't have a. I'm. Fuck."

Oh. Oh, yeah. That would be an issue. It's not bothering her, though. At all. "It'll be okay," she says, meaning it. He'll get used to it. "It's not so bad, being a girl."

"But--"

"It can be fun. Multiple orgasms, you know. Just wait," but he blanches, and ooops. Touchy, that.

"Fuck, I don't even wanna-- no. It's all wrong."

And that should be her cue to go over and give him a reassuring hug, but she doesn't. She can't, yet.

He's going to start crying soon. She doesn't think he cries much in front of other people, except maybe Chris, but it seems like he's decided that he's a feeling, sensitive man of the 21st Century, so he can cry in front of his woman.

She finally gets up and walks around the table. He looks up at her and she can tell he's surprised. He must have thought she was disgusted.

She sits down next to him. "You're still you," she says, although she means "you're even better now". And she strokes his wild hair and kisses him.

He twists his head away quickly, mumbles, "Brit, no, wait--" but she pulls him back.

"It's okay, Justin, it really is."

"But I'm..."

"it's okay," and she thinks she'll have to repeat it again, and she will. She can't explain it right now, because he's still afraid and confused and it's not the time to start revealing things. Not in words, anyway.

"It's okay," he says. Trying to convince himself of it, probably.

"Come on." When she kisses him again, he doesn't fight her. It's the same and different, too. Better. He's a girl, a tall, strong, beautiful girl, more beautiful than she'll ever be, she thinks, but she's not resentful of this, even though she often looks at women with envy.

He's putting his arms around her now, getting into it. She feels him relaxing. He strokes her back, cups her ass and pulls her closer. His hands are smaller. Not small, but smaller. Just like his shoulders are narrower, his bones are thinner. All of him is a little ... less big. She wonders where it all went. If it just melted and flowed and changed while he was sleeping. That doesn't bear thinking of: some god with a sense of humour moving things around while he lay helpless, taking a little away here, adding a little there...

He pulls her even closer, and she slides into his lap. He's touching her much in the same way he always does, with the same gentle eagerness. She's always called the shots in bed. He asks and she grants permission or denies it. She thinks that might change.

He pulls back with a gasp when she touches his breasts. "Don't--" he blurts, and he's panting and he's blushing. "Don't touch."

"Why not?"

"It's weirding me out," he says, but that's not the whole truth. His eyes are just a little glassy, and she knows what he looks like when he's turned on. That hasn't changed.

"But you like it," she says. It's strange that it doesn't feel strange to be talking him into it like he'd talked her into having sex the first time.

"But. But it's kinda--" He's looking past her, blushing furiously now. "don't you think. I didn't. like. do you swing that way?" he finally grits out.

Now she could, if she wanted, purr, "I swing your way, big boy," or something like that, and he'd buy it because he wants to, but she says, with simple honesty that might work better in the long run, "yeah."

"oh." She watches him mull over this for a while. He still gets the same little wrinkle in his forehead when he thinks hard. "oh."

"Yeah," she says. And she kisses him again and he lets her touch his breasts.

He forgets, at some point, or seems to. He touches her like he did before, like a boy would. Pushes her down on the couch, kisses her neck. And she knows when he remembers again, because he shivers and freezes and says, "oh," in a small voice. And he's staring down at her with a puzzled expression, helplessly puzzled, and she almost asks him what he's doing, because she's feeling the excitement gnaw at her and she's hot and he's so beautiful and he's not doing anything.

And it occurs to her that it probably feels different for a boy. To be excited.

"Don't think about it," she says and strokes his face. She can recognise him in that face, it's still his face. She strokes his eyebrows and pulls him down and kisses the little wrinkle between them. His skin is smooth, so very smooth, as if the change had been a rebirth and he is newly formed, a grown-up infant.

She watches him take a deep, shuddering breath and close his eyes, and that's when she takes over and turns him over and arranges their limbs, and ends up between his amazingly long legs that used to look too thin and bony, but are sleek and perfect now. And he doesn't protest when she lays her hands on his flat belly and pushes the t-shirt up and kisses the soft, soft skin and slides her hands higher and the thought strikes her that no one has touched his breasts before. No one. So she looks up to savour the first touch of her skin and his, and he's thrown his head back and his mouth is open in a quiet gasp.

When she lets her mouth follow her fingers, he gasps louder and he also says, "Brit, this feels really really. Weird. Weird. Good. Weird," and she whispers to his damp skin,

"More good than weird."

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah."

 

 

_Don't you want to feel amazing?   
Baby, you know I do _

 

Chris walks in on Justin and Britney one day. He was just going to ask them if they wanted something cause he's gonna call for a pizza, and they're on the shiny white leather sofa and Justin's shirt is unbuttoned and Britney is kissing the curve of his breast above the white lace of the bra she made him buy. Justin is looking down at her with a concentrated little frown. His cheeks are flushed.

Chris backs quickly out of the room. When he's talking to Joey later and Joey says, "Man, just imagine Justin with Britney now," Chris just says,

"Yeah, imagine that," and tries not to, but of course he does, anyway, and he asks Justin about it. Casual-like. "You and Brit, huh?"

"What about me and Brit?" Annoyance looks less annoyed and more pretty on Justin now. He still dresses in jeans and t-shirts, but they fit now, and since Britney is his shopping partner, they're tight. And frequently show his belly.

"You're still doing it."

"Yeah," he says, but he doesn't look as cocky as he did the time he told Chris Britney had finally let him into her bed.

 

 

_'Cause I do know what's good for me  
And I've done what I could for you _

 

"I don't know," he says. He's tugging at the hem of his t-shirt. He always does that when he gets nervous, even more so now that a lot of his shirts don't quite reach the waistband of his jeans. "I don't know, I just get the feeling that you like me more now."

She freezes; she can't help it. She doesn't think it's her fault that she does. She waits too long to answer, and she can see him draw back.

"I'm not your girlfriend," he says, heatedly. "I'm not a lesbian, I'm not a girl!"

"But I am!" she says, exasperated, and tries to reach for him, because that's how she deals with him; he's touchy-feely and will settle if she can get her hands on him, hug him or kiss him or just stroke his face. Now he cringes from her touch. He even mutters, "Don't touch me," as if it wasn't already abundantly clear how he feels.

He's acting like a sullen child, and that's nothing new, but he won't let her come near enough to fix it, won't play along, and she's tensing up right along with him. "You just have to get used to--"

"What? Being a chick? I don't have to get used to shit."

"I don't know, I mean, I know, but you look-- Maybe it's because you're used to being on top, used to being the guy--"

"Fuck! You don't know shit, you don't know the first thing about me!" he's yelling now, and his voice is a raw screech, because he's not used to screaming with female vocal cords.

"You never tell me anything." She knows she's sounding defensive, but she can't stop, just can't stop her voice from getting louder, sharper.

"Well, excuse me, allow me to fucking share. I have been on the bottom, on several occasions."

She stares at him and the stubborn pride in his eyes is like a cold shower. She can see the man in him now; he's hiding behind every soft line of the female body, behind the swell of breast and hip and the curve of waist. "You fucked men," she says, numb. "While we were together."

"Yeah. Jesus. You fucked women. So we're just one big happy faggoty family, then."

Her hand escapes her control and lashes out. He doesn't even flinch, just puts his hand, with black polish on the short nails, to his cheek and stares at her. "Fuck you," he says, and she thinks, this is it.

"Fuck you, too," she says.

 

 

_Fuck the world  
Because you can  
That's what it takes  
To be a man _

 

He tries to call her in the morning, but she's screening her calls. She's changed the background music on her answering machine. He remembers the song from her brief angry chick rock phase. It's Hole. Be A Man.

Bitch, he thinks.

 

He straightens his back and steps onto the dance floor. He can move naturally on spike heels now because he's practiced at home. He can move his hips just so, and he can dance in this tight, tight dress. He hasn't done it in public yet, but he has always been a guy who plans ahead.

He thinks, this should take about two minutes, and makes his way slowly through the crowd towards the bar. He's taller than most of the men here, even, and they're looking, oh yeah. They're looking.

He gets a beer and notices that the bartender is staring at his chest. Let the game begin, he thinks.

It's different, this. Picking up guys before was always so covert and sneaky. Now all he has to do, really, is let his eyes linger on someone, and he comes running. He's never seen Britney pick up men, but he figures this is all she has to do, as well.

"Hi," someone says. Justin looks at him - he has to look down a little - and it's, what's his name? Cody, who works at Jive. Justin's met him twice since the Thing, and both times, Cody tried to hit on him.

"Hi," Justin says.

"Rhonda, my my," Cody says. He's not bad-looking, Justin thinks. He has a nice smile. Black hair and dark eyes. He looks vaguely Hispanic, with golden-toned skin. "Didn't know you came here."

"I haven't been here before."

"Can I buy you a drink?"

And that's how easy it is.

 

He didn't think it would hurt. It couldn't have been like that for Britney, could it? She wouldn't have come back. She wouldn't have.

"Jesus," Cody says. "You're about as much fun as a corpse," and he rolls off with a groan. Justin lies frozen for a shivering cold moment until it's too much, way way too much, and Jesus, he feels like he's been split in two, and he scrambles off the bed because his game face is flaking and he stumbles to the bathroom and he knows he's bleeding, he can feel it trickle down his inner thigh like a hot little slug. He feels sick, but not sick enough to puke, just sick like acid indigestion and it's hard to breathe and his cheeks burn. He's crying and bleeding, trying to stop both, sitting on the toilet and just leaking, women leak all the time, why is he leaking. And he cleans up and bites his lip until the pain of it is sharper than the dull pain between his legs and the twisting in his chest, and he puts some toilet paper in his panties, that fucking string underwear that the fucking dress decrees, and takes a deep breath and stands up straight and puts on the game face and smiles.

"I have to go," he says, and thank God for years and years of practice, speaking with everyone's eyes on him, even when he wants to cry, even when he's sick or bored or afraid. His voice is clear and unwavering. Cody's expression doesn't change.

"Yeah. Sure," he says. Fuck you, Justin thinks. Fuck fuck fuck FUCK YOU, but all he says is,

"Later," as he closes the door behind him.

 

 

_When I wake up  
In my makeup  
Have you ever felt so used up as this? _

 

At eleven thirty Chris opens the back door to let the dogs out into the yard and finds Justin curled up on the porch couch.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

"I'm just--" Justin mumbles, "I'm just sitting here."

It's a little damp and nippy outside and Justin's wearing a very tight, sleeveless dress that seems to be made of vinyl. It's shiny and black and seems more like a coat of paint than an actual item of clothing. It's zipped in the front. He's wearing too much eye makeup, and it's smudged and messy and looks like bruises around his eyes.

"Come on in, kid," Chris says, because Justin seems to be waiting for something, looking up at him with his not-really-bruised eyes and his red lips pressed together around clattering teeth. He's never needed an invitation before. "You'll catch your death."

Inside the door, Justin toes off his sandals and mutters, "bathroom," and disappears down the hall, cat-silent on bare feet. Chris stares at the black, shiny, spike-heeled sandals and wonders when Justin learned how to walk in them.

He goes to put on coffee. When Justin shows up again, his face is scrubbed clean. He's pale and hollow-eyed, and his mouth is red and a little swollen, as if he's bitten his lips or rubbed them too hard in his efforts to clean off the lipstick.

"Are you okay?" Chris asks carefully.

"Yeah," Justin says, but his eyes are bright and he's meeting Chris' gaze way too earnestly.

"Justin..." he says, and Justin flinches and looks away and hugs himself.

"it's nothing," he says sharply. "I just. I'm just weirded out. and. I don't know. tired."

"You can sleep in the guestroom," Chris says.

"Yeah, okay," Justin says. He's still looking at the table, rubbing his elbows. His nails are short and painted black.

"So. What's up?" This is one of those times when Chris can't for his life figure out if Justin's clamming up because he really doesn't want to talk, or if he's embarrassed and wants Chris to force him to tell.

"I'm okay," Justin says again. "I guess I'm not as good at holding my booze now. With this. You know. This body."

"You want some coffee?"

"I think I'll just go to bed, man. I'm, like, dying on my feet here." He's swaying a little, and he really does look tired; without the cover of makeup, the rings under his eyes are deep purple.

"Okay," Chris says. Some sleep will do the kid good. "Justin," he says to his back as he turns to the door. "If there's anything--"

"I know. I'm fine." And he's gone down the hall.

When Chris goes to bed an hour later, he thinks he hears muted sobs from the guest room, but when he pokes his head in, Justin is silent under the covers.

In the morning, he's cleared out.

Chris calls him around noon. "You butted out pretty fast in the morning."

"Yeah. I didn't have any. Um."

Ooh. "Okay. Right. Spare me the details, okay."

The laugh comes a beat too late, and Chris reminds himself to be more sensitive. Justin hasn't acclimatised completely yet.

 

They've started writing songs for the new album, even though no one knows if there will be another album. They don't want to do it without Justin - in fact, Chris is pretty sure they can't do it without him - but they're writing, nevertheless. JC is a kitten about everything in his life except the music, and Chris sees him get more and more tense as Justin gets in his face. They've been bickering since before noon. "It doesn't work, you aren't officially a member of this group until you're back the way you were," JC says, finally, and Chris closes his eyes and waits for the storm. "You might wanna, like, think about a solo career or--"

"That's easy for you to say," Justin snaps. He's moving closer to JC, towering over him in his boots with the four-inch heels. "You're not the one who gets treated like a fucking baby just because--"

"You're acting like a fucking baby, that's why," JC interrupts. His face is pinched and his mouth is tight and he's about two seconds from raising his voice, too, Chris knows, and then JC puts his hand on Justin's breastbone, just above the deep cut of Justin's tiny top and pushes, "and would you stop waving those things in my goddamn face--" and Justin takes a short step backwards and Chris sees his hand curl into a fist, but he reacts way too late. He thinks he hears JC's lip split between teeth and knuckles.

JC's been a punching bag all his life, so he can ride a sock in the jaw, but this is a hard, well-aimed punch; he reels backwards and catches himself against the wall.

The silence is complete and blood-thick for five seconds. Then Justin turns on his heel and stomps out and JC staggers to the nearest chair and flops down, holding both hands over his bleeding mouth.

Chris stares at the bright blood seeping between JC's fingers, at Lance and Joey descending on him with identical horrified expressions. He stares for another five seconds and then he runs after Justin.

There are only so many places to look. Justin is in none of them, so Chris crosses himself - even though he's not Catholic, but the occasion seems to call for it - and pushes the door to the ladies' room open.

"J?" he calls softly. A middle-aged woman in a power suit stands at the sinks with a compact mirror and a tube of lipstick.

"Excuse me," she says.

"No, excuse me," Chris says and puts a foot inside the door. Oh, hell. He walks through the room, forbidden territory, feeling like an explorer. Feeling pretty stupid, too, when he calls, "Justin? Uh, Rhonda? Come on."

"I don't think your friends are in here," the woman says. "This is the ladies' room."

"Oh, she's in here. I can see you, kiddo. Talk to me."

"Go away," Justin says. His voice is a little muffled. He's locked himself in a stall.

"You can't sit on the can forever."

"Maybe I should just flush myself down the fucking can."

"Self-pity does not become you, dude. Come on, talk to uncle Christopher."

"That's not the way to talk to a lady, young man," the woman says behind him. "I think she was upset."

"I know she's upset. She just left her buddy in a bleeding heap back there. Man, you gotta talk to me."

There's a little pause and then the soft snick of the latch pulling back. Chris throws the power suit woman an apologetic glance and slips into the stall.

Justin's sitting on the toilet lid with his head in his hands.

"Hey," Chris says.

"Hey," Justin says. "Is everyone pissed?"

"I don't know. I didn't stick around. You kinda fucked up JC's face, though."

"Oh, man."

"Yeah." Justin's mascara is running, he notices, so he rips off some toilet paper and hands him the wad. "Um. You're. Uh, raccooning."

"Fuck, that too. I really have turned into a woman."

"Uh... Duh?"

"Oh, fuck."

"Justin. Are you okay?" He tries to put all sorts of nuances in the question, because he has no idea what the right question is. What Justin's major malfunction is, so to speak. He just knows that something's up and it's not JC's tactlessness.

"Yeah," Justin says. "No. Yeah. I don't know." He's trying to stop crying, but he's not making a very good job of it. "Oh, fuck," he mutters and blows his nose. "Fuck, fuck, fuckity--" and Chris crouches down and hugs him. Justin sniffles against his shoulder and scrabbles a little feebly at his shirt. Chris pats his bare shoulder and tries not to think about smooth skin. Tries to think about tears and JC's bleeding mouth.

"It's okay," he mutters. Justin hugs him back tightly for a while and then lets him go. "Are you gonna come back up now?"

"Dunno. I hit JC. I think I hit him pretty hard."

"Yeah," Chris says. He tries to remember if he's ever seen Justin punch anyone before.

"I don't know what I was thinking. He was just."

"Bugging you?"

"He always bugs me," Justin says, and the corners of his mouth twitch. "He's, you know. JC. That's what he does. But it didn't get to me before."

"So what's different?"

"I don't know." He rubs his eyes, spreading the mascara around even worse. "I think I have to get a job." He gets up.

"A job? What are you talking about?" but Justin is already on his way out.

 

Justin hugs JC, too, as soon as he gets back to the studio. JC slumps against him, and Chris can see the relief in his face. His mouth is swollen and turning purple.

"Love you, man, I'm totally sorry," Justin says sheepishly, and JC nods eagerly.

"It's okay. I mean, I was all, like, rude. It's okay."

"I'm gonna get another job for a while, okay," Justin says. "like, I don't know. Modelling or something. Whatever."

 

 

_Her hair is Harlow gold  
Her lips sweet surprise  
Her hands are never cold  
She's got Bette Davis eyes _

 

"I'm not angry," he says. He's not. Britney's quiet on her end, and he says, quickly, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she says. "I'm not angry, either." She doesn't ask him to come back, though. He didn't think she would.

"No, I'm sorry about. About everything. I don't know, if I ever hurt you or..." He's not sure what he's saying, where he's going with this, so he lets the sentence trail off.

"You've been hitting JC's special stash again, haven't you?" she says, and he hears the smile in her voice.

"I guess," he says and smiles, too. "I'm gonna do some modelling."

"Yeah?"

"I can't handle sitting around and being useless. I can't do any of my old stuff cause of, you know. They wouldn't believe I'm me. It sucks."

"You'll do fine," she says.

 

The job. He doesn't really want to talk about it with anyone else for a while. He's not embarrassed, but he can feel the potential for embarrassment. Being a model seems like a step down. People like him date models.

He talks to Chris because he can't stand to keep any more secrets from him.

"Randal?" Chris says incredulously and stares at him. Justin can see that he's fighting a grin. Fighting hard. "What the hell kind of a name is that?"

"It's my name."

The photographer who did the first photoshoot for the portfolio - Clive, a short, stocky British guy with a moustache that looked pencilled in - said Rhonda was not a selling name. With the right marketing, Justin could be huge, he said. "you've got the kind of face and frame that's happening right now. Androgynous, yet all woman," and Justin bit his lip not to giggle nervously, and stumbled on his heels when he followed the guy into the studio.

"I know it's your name. but. It's a man's name. I mean, it's your actual middle name."

"It's cool and happening," Justin says.

"It's a really dorky name, though. I liked Rhonda."

"I know. Shut up."

Chris laughs some more, but then the next day, the photos come in the mail.

They are glossy 8x6 prints that come in an honest-to-god manila folder. "Like blackmail photos, man," Chris says and pats Justin on the back, gingerly, between his shoulder blades. Then he grabs the folder and pulls out the pictures and falls silent.

"Um," Justin says after a while. "Chris? Can I see them?"

"Hoo, boy," Chris says softly. He's staring at the pictures and chewing at his bottom lip. "They made you take your clothes off."

"Yeah," Justin says. Wanna make something of it? he wants to add, but the words won't come. He doesn't remember being ashamed before. Just cold and and a little tired, and Clive had said, "I want to get a shot of you against the brick wall over there, in just the skirt and the shoes," and it had been nothing to unbutton the shirt and throw it over a chair, and turn to the wall. Nothing at all.

"They're beautiful pictures," Chris says. He's holding up the brick wall shot. Justin sees someone he doesn't know, someone who can't be him, because she's got long legs in stockings with a seam along the back, and a short leather skirt and a long, smooth back that broadens into shoulders that aren't broad enough. But the profile is his, even under the makeup, and the curly hair is his, and she's almost naked.

"yeah," he says. There are more pictures. That girl. That girl on a divan, wearing a precariously slipping sheet. That girl sitting in a chair, with her legs spread and the leather skirt riding up her cream-white thighs. That girl pouting at the camera, thick black smudges around her eyes, her lips dark red, her hair a cloud of gold-toned curls.

He hasn't seen photos of himself like this before, he realises. These are the first ones. "I didn't--"

"What?"

"I didn't know they'd be so..."

"Naked?" Chris says, and there's an edge in his voice.

 

The next time he does a photo shoot, the photographer, a woman this time, tells him to strip. He twists his body into strange positions for two hours and he knows it'll look great with his muscles tight and defined. A piece of art, the photographer says, approvingly, but Justin feels exposed and cold. The assistant rubs his shoulders with a terrycloth towel to make him stop shivering.

The photographer finally tells him her name and asks him for a drink afterwards. It occurs to him, halfway through his third martini, that she's hitting on him. She's forty-five at least, and her eyes are hard and he thinks about Britney's small hands and bright smile. He gulps down his drink and mutters an excuse and leaves. In the mirror behind the bar, he sees her shrug and wave for the waiter to get her another martini.

 

 

_He likes your attitude  
He tries it on for size _

 

"You wanna shoot some hoops?" Justin asks one day when they're bored and going nuts in the slow heat of Chris' house.

Justin's still got game. Chris seems to have lost his, and it takes a while to figure out just why he can't keep up. "You're slacking, Kirkpatrick, you moron!" Justin yells and crowds him, and Chris backs off and finally realises what he's doing. Backing off, giving Justin space he shamelessly takes advantage of. He stops in the middle of the court and looks at his hands, looks up at Justin's eager face, looks at Justin's loose t-shirt clinging to his chest.

All right. This is supposed to be fun, he tells himself. And it isn't like he hasn't played with girls before. "I'm just lulling you into a false feeling of safety, Timberlake," he growls, and Justin laughs his toothy, boyish laugh.

Later, Justin says, "Jesus God, but it's so fucking hot," and tugs at the hem of his t-shirt.

"You're not taking that off, are you?" Chris asks quickly, and Justin looks down, puzzled.

"Oh right," he says, and Chris realises that he'd forgotten. "Weird, though. Everyone else wants me to take 'em off. You just keep telling me to put on more clothes."

"I see enough of you as it is," Chris says and claps him on the shoulder, but he's thinking about the photos in Justin's portfolio, pretty photos, naked ones.

 

He takes the portfolio to Dani. Dani is unimpressed. "Chris, look at her. She's huge."

"She's gorgeous. Sporty, a little tomboyish--"

"She's a hulk. What are you gonna do? Pair her up with Dennis Rodman?"

He's two seconds from screaming at her for that, but he manages to bite his tongue and keep it in. The pictures of Justin - Randal - are spread on the table, and there's a black and white shot of him - her - tied up and stretched out with twisted sheets around the bedposts of a brass bed. He wears a black wig and dark, dark lipstick.

Dani looks at him and gathers up the photos and sticks them back in the folder. "I can't believe it. You have a thing for this chick."

He knows he didn't cover up the guilt fast enough, and he sounds lame even to himself when he says, quickly, too quickly, "who? What? She's just some model chick."

Dani shakes her head. She always could make him feel about five years old. "You and your stupid celebrity crushes. This chick is, like, light years out of your league. Jesus, Chris, I'm trying to run a company here. Your company, in fact."

He's about to protest, but then he figures a denial will just seem like he's in denial. Which he's not. Jesus. He'll have to tell her about Justin soon. They'd said family only, and she isn't, anymore, but it feels like lying. He takes the folder from her and stuffs it in his bag. "Yeah, well. Carry on," he says. He even smiles at her.

 

 

_I'm gonna make a mistake  
I'm gonna do it on purpose   
Gonna waste my time _

 

Incredibly, his agent asks him to try out for a video. "It's good exposure. You need it," he says.

"It's a ... Backstreet Boys video," Justin says. "I don't know if I want that kind of exposure."

"Hey, these boybands are where it's at. All the teenies will want to be you. We could get you in a few of them. Wonder if Nsync are doing anything right now." Justin bites his lip, hard, and says,

"I don't know. Um. I think they're on a break or something."

 

"You're not gonna do a Backstreet Boys video, you moron," Lance tells him.

"I will so," Justin says, and Lance says,

"Over my dead body," and that's it. He'll do it if it kills him. If it means he'll have to strip naked and rub oil all over Nick Carter with his fucking hair.

 

He doesn't get nervous until the day of the shoot. That's when it occurs to him that he knows these guys. They must be wondering where the hell Justin has disappeared to by now.

He puts on more makeup than is strictly necessary, even though he knows the makeup artists will scrub it all off and start over. But he doesn't want to face people he knows with a naked face.

They smile at him and shake his hand and there's not a glimpse of recognition in their eyes. MTV is there, with cameras everywhere, and it's familiar, so familiar, all of this.

"Hi, I'm Randal," he says to the camera and smiles shyly. "I'm the, uh. The girl."

"Tell us something about yourself," and he stares at the mike. It looks dangerous, suddenly.

"This is my first video shoot," he says. "I always wanted to be in a video. I really like the Backstreet Boys."

"Who's your favourite one?"

Oh, fuck. He stares helplessly at the woman with her mike and her earnest expression.

Nick pops his head around the corner and grins at Justin. "I'm her favourite, of course," he says cockily, and Justin grits his teeth and says,

"Nick's really cute, yeah," and giggles. Nick hugs him, a big hug for the cameras, but he whispers,

"You're cool, don't worry," in Justin's ear, and Justin wonders if he is looking as panicky as he's feeling. Nick rubs his back and lets him go. Justin finds a smile for him and escapes to the dressing room.

It's not a long respite, though, because next, he has to cosy up to Nick again, for more than an hour, while they shoot take after take and Justin rubs himself against Nick, breathes on his neck, pushes him against a wall and almost-almost-almost-but-not-quite kisses him. All this barefoot and wearing a see-through white dress. Nick sings about the girl who's always two steps ahead, and Justin runs through a corridor and laughs. Shakes his hair, which isn't his hair at all, but a long, blonde wig. Looks over his shoulder at the camera and almost slams into the wall.

It's all familiar, and still it's different. He feels stupid and selfish for looking at the Backstreet Boys with envy. So, he used to be a popstar, too. So what. So fucking what. And he stands a little taller and holds his back a little straighter, and MTV gets hilarious footage of Howie standing next to him, dwarfed and rolling his eyes and saying, "I should probably be intimidated, but I can take it. I'm man enough."

He lounges on a deck chair in a tiny red bikini and smiles sweetly at Howie. He dives in the pool and loses his wig, and for a few minutes he forgets that he's the Girl, and laughs and throws the soggy mess of blonde hair at Howie. He does remember when a burly assistant helps him out of the pool and says, "Watch your step there, sugar."

"How old are you?" Nick asks after they wrap and everyone's hugging and slapping each other's backs with huge grins. Nick hugs Justin for longer than Justin thinks is entirely justified.

"Twenty-one," he says, because that's what his fake ID says.

"All right!" Nick says and slings an arm around his shoulder. "Then you can come to the wrap party."

 

"I want to ask you out," Nick says later, when the DJ has played three slow songs in a row and Justin has run out of excuses. He's got the buzz of three beers and a whiskey sour in his head and Nick has started looking peculiarly attractive. Big and solid and his eyes are very blue, and he pays attention to Justin and laughs at his jokes. It feels a little like spying on Nick. Checking out his pick-up technique. Which seems very effective, Justin notes. "Randal," Nick says, and he pronounces it right, RanDAL, like French. Justin smiles and sways closer. He's getting pretty good at dancing in spike heels.

"Will you go out with me?" Nick asks. His hands tighten a little on Justin's waist, and Justin wonders if he's nervous. Well, hell, I'm a babe, he thinks and opens his mouth to say yes.

And closes it again with a snap. Jesus. Jesus Christ. This is someone he knows. Someone who knows people he knows. "No," he says quickly, "no, I'm sorry. Uh--" oh, God. "I have a boyfriend."

"Who's that?" Nick asks, and Justin doesn't catch the defensive tone until later, so he crosses his fingers behind Nick's back and says,

"Um, you know him, I think. Chris. Kirkpatrick," and apologises to Chris in his head and wonders if he'll get his ass kicked for this.

Nick backs off, almost violently, and his expression is comically astonished. Justin clamps his teeth around a laugh. "But--" Nick sputters. "Chris? You're dating Chris? From *NSYNC? But-- he's--"

Justin finds the part of his brain that has paid attention to the way Britney handles rude people and says, with a smile he hopes looks scary rather than inebriated, "If you say either 'short', 'old' or 'fat', you'll be dancing with your toe in a cast tomorrow. I'm wearing spike heels."

Nick looks immediately contrite. "I'm sorry," he says. "Forgive me. Chris is cool. It's just. Surprising. I didn't know you knew him."

"He's in fashion," Justin says.

"Oh, yeah," Nick says, sounding almost relieved. Justin wonders what he's telling himself. Then Nick pulls him closer again and they dance in silence until the song ends.

AJ sashays up with a beer in one hand and a buxom blonde in the other and bumps hips with Nick. He winks obnoxiously at Justin and says, over the sweeping strains of This I Promise You, "Randal, my girl, is Nick-ay treatin' ya like a gentleman?"

"Uh, yeah," Justin says. He follows Nick who follows AJ and the girl to a booth.

"Hi, I'm Darling," the girl says. She's wearing a halter top that looks a lot like a little bandanna tied up with a shoelace. Justin remembers a similar thing in Britney's wardrobe.

"I'm, uh, Randal," he says.

"Oh, I know," she says. "I was wardrobe assistant at the shoot. I didn't do your clothes, though. But you looked great, anyway!" She has dimpled cheeks.

"Oh," he says.

"Do you hang out with the other Nsync boys a lot?" Nick asks suddenly. "Do you know Justin?"

Justin closes his eyes and lifts his beer glass, only to notice that it's empty. He stares at it, at the dregs of golden liquid sloshing around on the bottom, at the little curls of bubbles still clinging to the inside. At his hand with the nails painted neatly in a pale rose colour.

"Do you want another drink?"

"Yes," he says.

Nick doesn't ask about Justin again. Justin drinks his fourth beer and when he tries to stand, the shoes he's wearing seem to have acquired ball bearings under the heels.

"Oh, my," Darling giggles from her seat in AJ's lap. "You shouldn't drink if you haven't eaten, honey."

"I have eaten!" Justin says sourly. He can handle four beers, Jesus Christ--

Nick catches him neatly in a dip as he reels and holds him there for a while. "I think I should get you home," he says.

"Yeah," Justin says.

When Nick gets in the car with him, it occurs to Justin that he can't possibly ask them to take him home. So he gives the chauffeur Chris' address.

Of course Nick would know the address. What doesn't Nick know? "You live with him?"

"No, just here in Orlando," Justin says sweetly.

The car pulls up to the curb outside Chris' house. The chauffeur opens the door and Justin climbs out on unsteady legs. The beer is still dancing around in his head, and he's ridiculously grateful when Nick unfolds himself behind him and catches his arm. So we know what it takes to make the change complete, he thinks, four fucking beers and a whiskey sour, but Nick is escorting him up the drive, and it's funny in some ways and sort of nice in others. Hell, attention is always good, right. And Nick is really paying attention. Nick Carter, of all people, and Justin giggles softly to himself, and giggles more because the sound is so girlish and bright.

"What's funny?" Nick asks, and Justin stops, because he can't seem to walk and turn his head at the same time. Nick bumps into him.

"Sorry, sorry," he breathes, and the giggling dies down because he's sort of pressed against Nick and he always thought, when he thought about Nick, that he should maybe work out a little more, that he was maybe a little tubby or something, but it wasn't bothering him now, and he wonders if it ever really did. Nick's big and warm and solid and also, now, has a hand on Justin's cheek, and Justin lifts his eyes - he doesn't have to lift his head, because they're roughly the same height - and is not surprised when Nick kisses him.

Not surprised, mainly because he's too busy wrapping his arms around Nick's neck and kissing back, possibly. Because it's a warm night and his wrap is sliding off his shoulders, and he's being kissed gently but thoroughly and he opens his mouth and it's a real kiss. Nick's hand on his face and the other on his waist, and he almost feels like hooking a leg around Nick's, but he doesn't think he can pull that off right now, not on the gravel, not in these shoes, and Chris' drive is sort of uneven, too--

He must have stiffened, because Nick breaks off and backs off. He's not apologetic, as Justin expected. He just says "Goodnight, Randal," and turns to leave.

"Goodnight," Justin says. He's just a little breathless. Just a little. Weird shit. Nick Carter. He shakes his head at himself and waves to Nick's back. Then he bends down to pick his wrap off the gravel and almost falls on his face.

 

Chris' house is old and rambling and hidden under great, lumbering oaks. Justin staggers around it, because he has the key to the back door. He winks and waves at the security cameras. He stops in front of the one on the back porch and wiggles his hips and slides his hands over the front of his dress. He feels giddy and light-headed, and he makes a face at the camera and digs out his key and lets himself in.

For a few dizzy seconds, he can't remember the security code, but it comes back. "Jesus," he mutters under his breath. He has to start remembering that he can't drink as much as he used to. He has a cover to maintain, for God's sake.

"Can't go around kissing Backstreet Boys," he tells the dark hall. "Eeeeven if they're prett-ay Nick-ay."

Then Busta and Korea come rattling down the hall in a flurry of yaps and short, stocky legs, and he laughs and pets them with risk for his neck, because the bending-down thing is still not really working properly. "Hey, Chris!" he calls and stumbles along the hall. Halfway, he figures that walking would be easier without the damn shoes and gets them off his feet without falling over.

"Chris," he says again when he gets to the living room. The TV is on, but all the lights are off. Weirdo, he thinks with a smile. "Chris? I had to come here, cause I couldn't tell them I live ... where I used to, like. You know?"

Chris is on the sofa with a can of beer. He's watching something black and white and grainy. "How was your party?" he says.

Justin frowns and squints into the gloom. Chris isn't looking at him. "It was okay, I guess. I danced. Um. And had, like, way too much beer."

"Dancing with the Backstreet Boys, huh?"

"Well, it was their party, right. And Nick kept hitting on me. It was bizarre." He suddenly remembers what he told Nick, and decides that it'll never be as easy to break that to Chris as right now, when he's drunk and Chris is ... whatever he is. He seems to be nursing that beer. Chris never fucks around with beer. He gets 'em, cracks 'em, and downs 'em in like five gulps. Justin can't stop a nervous giggle, but he says, "Um, and I may, possibly, sort of. Um. Have told Nick thatwe'redating. Um. Is that okay?"

Chris looks up sharply, and in the dark, his eyes look like patches of nothing in his face. "You what?" he said. "Who?"

"What?" Justin says before he understands what the hell Chris is asking. "You - and. You know. You and me. Us. We." He even waves his hand a little helplessly in the air to make his point. "You and me," he repeats. "Is that okay? Cause he was sort of all over me there."

"Yeah, I saw that," Chris says, and Justin almost groans out loud. Of course he had to see all that. He waits for Chris to rag him about smooching Nick Carter, but Chris just sits there with his beer and his eyes back on the TV. He's wearing a baggy sweater and jeans, and the pale light from the TV flickers over his face and makes his strange features really fucking eerie and sort of beautiful. Alien and strange and beautiful. And Justin smiles, because he's got to be pretty drunk to stand here and admire the lines of Chris' face. But it is true: alien beautiful and he keeps on admiring until Chris moves and the light falls on him from a different angle, and he looks like himself again, round face and dark eyes and scraggly stubble and his mouth looks too tight. Justin wonders what he did, because it's hard to piss Chris off, but Justin's got that down to a science. It's almost precious how Chris doesn't really bother getting angry with most people. He bothers with Justin, though.

Then Chris asks, "so, why me, dude?" and Justin doesn't even know what he means. Chris is trying to sound like he's casual, but Justin can see that tightness in his mouth. He doesn't understand why it matters, because,

"What do you mean? I mean, who else? Wasn't gonna say JC, you know? We're buddies. Right?" He's not sure he likes the way that last bit comes out all helpless and tiny, but Chris is being seriously weird and it's late, and Justin's drunk and suddenly really hungry. "You wanna get a pizza?" he says.

"Don't you think that's a little weird, though?" Chris says.

"What? Getting pizza? Well, I guess Chinese could work for me, too. I'm just really fucking hungry, cause they look at you all funny if you try to eat a lot, you know. They're all, oh, she's eating like a pig, she'll get fat, and I can't eat when they're staring at me." He snaps his mouth shut, because, whoah, that got away from him.

"No, you moron," Chris says, "us dating, I mean. Don't you think Nick figures that's kinda fake? We're not exactly in the same league here."

"But we hang out all the time. We're, like, buddies. You know, like in the song," and he sings and takes a couple little Terence Trent D'Arby-ish groove steps, "we started out as frieeeeeends--"

"Oh, shut up," Chris says, and that's another thing Justin likes about Chris, how he can't stay pissy, how Justin knows just where to go to get Chris to forget about his weird funks. "Fuck, I'm calling for a pizza. Anchovies, anchovies, lots of anchovies--"

"No! yech," Justin yells and there goes the last of any funk, and he grapples with Chris for the phone, because Chris is mad for anchovies and he always gets them and forces Justin to eat them, too. Justin hates anchovies, but Chris has evil methods. He can make Justin do stuff.

After the battle is lost, Justin leans against Chris in the dark room and falls asleep while they wait for the pizza.

 

 

_Only you  
Can calm me down  
I'm aiming too high _

 

Chris comes downstairs in the morning, his head heavy with old beer, but no real hangover, thank god. Nothing a cup of coffee won't cure.

He waits until he has a cup to nurse before he goes into the livingroom. Justin is still asleep on the sofa. He's kicked off the blanket Chris put on him last night, and his dress has ridden up over his thighs. Chris stares at him and smells the coffee, too hot to drink yet, but it feels like the smell of it alone, that rich, mellow, coffee-morning-good smell is making the fog inn his head clear. And he can't turn his eyes from Justin's long legs. He's stretched out on his back, one arm resting over his midriff, one curled around his head. Chris notes with some surprise he really shouldn't be feeling that Justin's armpits are smooth and hairless. Of course. The kid's a fucking model. But Chris realises that he's still thinking of Justin as a boy, and it's strange that he shaves his armpits and legs. A lot more strange than the gentle swell of breasts and hint of cleavage over the pale blue fabric of the dress.

Then Justin sighs and shifts, and his dress slides up another couple of inches, far enough to show a glimpse of white lace and Chris looks away quickly. Jesus, he's standing here ogling the kid in his sleep.

He looks at Justin's quiet face for a while, at the smudged eyeliner around his eyes and the faint hint of lipstick still on his mouth.

Then he goes back to the kitchen to read the morning paper.

 

An hour later he hears Justin get up and scuffle to the bathroom, the shower running. Then he's in the kitchen doorway, shivering in his thin, spaghetti-strap dress, one of Chris' towels wrapped around his head.

"Are you cold?" Chris asks and goes to put on another pot of coffee.

"Yeah," Justin says through clattering teeth. "Fuck, it's like I can't get warm. And my head is killing me. You got any aspirin or ... dunno, fucking codeine? Jesus."

Chris runs up to his room and finds a reasonably clean sweater. Justin puts it on over his dress with a grateful smile.

"Dude," Justin says after his first cup of coffee. Chris looks up from his paper. Justin's face looks completely guileless, but he's tapping his fingers on the tabletop.

"What?"

"Nick will probably tell people about. You know. What I told him."

It takes a while for Chris to figure out what the hell he's talking about, because Chris is thinking about them down in his drive again, Nick's hand on Justin's cheek, Justin's arms around Nick's neck.

"So?" he says, a little testily, because the image won't go away. It's a lot clearer in his head than it was in reality. His mind's eye sees Justin's long lashes flutter closed, and Nick's thumb move a little in small strokes on Justin's cheek.

"No, I'm just. I just mean that people might, you know. Ask you about it."

Justin had leaned in; he hadn't been surprised or put off. He'd put his arms around Nick. Chris shakes his head and wonders why he's thinking about this. "What are you saying?"

Justin looks at him with narrowing eyes, and his face is hangover-pale with two heated spots of colour on his cheekbones. Then he blinks and smiles, a little lopsided smile. "Here I'm trying to ask you out and you're being all pissy, Kirkpatrick," he says.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, you don't have a girlfriend right now. I keep getting hit on by assholes and Nick Carter all the time. I just figured, you know. We could just tell people we're dating, and you could take me to, dunno, something. It could be a good deal, like, I mean. It could."

Yeah, a really fucking good deal, Chris thinks sourly and almost tells Justin to get a fucking grip, only-- "You get hit on by assholes?" he asks, "what assholes?"

"Dude, everyone," Justin says, "it's like I'm an asshole magnet."

"But--" Chris stops and looks at Justin. And of course he gets hit on, that should be fucking obvious. That doesn't stop Chris from feeling like he should have been walking next to Justin all along, carrying a baseball bat. "They ever get nasty?" he asks.

Justin rubs his eyes and peers into his cup. Chris fills it. "Sometimes, you know. Britney said it was like that. That I'd get used to it."

Chris wonders in what way this is any different from being chased up and down the streets by rabid fans, but Justin looks tired and dejected, so he just says, "Fine, fine."

"Yeah?"

"Consider me your boyfriend, Randal."

 

"Wow, great!" JC says.

"You're not really dating, are you?" Joey asks.

"You can't take him!" Lance says.

Chris stops, hand half-way to the pop corn bowl. "What?"

"Don't any one of you ever think?" Lance says.

"I don't know about these jokers," Chris says, "but I know I do. So, what did I miss now, Bass?"

"Hah, Lance wants to take me himself," Justin says. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor between the coffee table and the TV. He's wearing hotpants. They're all studiously not looking, except JC, who complimented him on his top when he came in, and said he thought Justin should wear more red.

"I'm just saying that Chris can't start dating some girl who's six feet tall and looks exactly like Justin," Lance says.

"I'm 6'2"," Justin says.

Lance ignores him. "Not with all the rumours going around. It'll be more than we can handle right now."

"But--" Chris says. He's got a handful of pop corn he doesn't know what to do with. He puts them back in the bowl. "He doesn't--"

"How are you gonna explain him?"

"I don't look that much like. Um, like me." Justin scratches his head and frowns. "Uh, I mean. Like me before. Boy-me. Him."

"You don't look that different," Lance says. "The hair and everything - you're still you, and they'll notice, sooner or later."

"Fuck," Justin says, as if he's horribly disappointed that he can't go to the Multiple Sclerosis fundraiser at St. Jude's with Chris. He's still frowning, watching the movie and absently twisting a long corkscrew curl around a finger.

"What about--" Chris starts. Justin gets up quickly and walks out. "--Nick..."

"What about him?" Lance says. He looks after Justin. "Where did he go?"

"When you gotta go, you gotta go," Joey says philosophically. "Women are always running to the can."

Chris turns back to Lance. "Nick's not gonna shut up about Randal's supposed boyfriend."

"So you'll get some questions. Tell them Nick's full of shit."

Then Justin comes back, and the conversation dies a merciful, quick death.

"Oh my God," JC says primly.

"Don't look much like him now," Justin says with a certain amount of stubborn pride.

 

"I can't believe O-Town's playing," Chris mutters. "I did not sign up for this." They get out of the limo and the flashes flash and the TV cameras roll, and voices wash over them.

Justin stays dutifully next to him, his hand a little cold in Chris'. He's got his dazzling, megawatt smile in place and he's sleek and long-limbed and graceful. The shaved head makes his eyes look bigger and darker. He's been sporting the Sinead O'Connor look for two weeks and Chris still isn't used to it.

They mingle and nibble on hors d'oeuvres and sip champagne. Justin flashes bright smiles at everyone who speaks to them, and plays the role of attentive date like he's never been anything else.

Then someone says, "Hi, Randal," and when Chris turns around, Nick Carter is smiling at Justin. "Oh, hi, Chris," he says.

Chris swallows his canapé with some difficulty. "Nick," he says. "Hi. Fancy seeing you here."

"Yeah, well, you know how it is," Nick says. He's still looking at Justin. Ogling him.

"Yeah," Chris says. Justin is smiling back at Nick, but it's a small, bemused smile, not the big model grin he gives the cameras. Chris puts an arm around his shoulder, but Justin is wearing four-inch heels and Chris realises, a little too late, that he looks like a moron having to stand on tip-toe to get his arm around his goddamn date. He lets his hand slide down Justin's side and settle on his hip. "So, Nick," he says. "I guess you've met Randal?"

"Yeah," Nick says and shifts his eyes down and actually looks at Chris for the first time.

"That was a pretty cool video. How did the single do?"

Nick lifts an eyebrow and gives a patented Carter smirk. "Did all right."

"That's cool." Chris rubs Justin's bare shoulder. "Honey, do you want more champagne?" he asks, and Justin shoots him a surprised glance.

"I'm okay," he says with a little frown.

"Oh, O-Town's performing," Chris says quickly. Nick is looking at Justin again. Adoring. Smitten. Justin is looking back. "Hmm. I don't want to bash them, but."

"They suck," Nick says.

"Yeah."

Nick is squinting up at the stage. "You know, Jacob used to look a lot like Justin."

Justin gapes in outrage, and Chris holds his laughter down. "Hyeah. Like Justin's ugly brother."

"But then he got the dreads. Improvement."

"No, I liked the curls," Chris says. Justin is looking like thunder, and Chris pats his shoulder.

"The curls," Nick says with a little moue. "Hah. Justin looks like one of those little French dogs."

"Or a trimmed poodle," Chris says and lets a little giggle escape. Nick laughs, a good hearty laugh.

"I do--" Justin starts, but he catches himself, thank god, before Chris has to intervene. "uh. I think ... Justin's. cute."

"I know you do, honey," Chris says soothingly. "And he is. A cute poodle."

Once the laughter dies down, Nick says, "Whatever happened to Justin?" He turns back to look at the stage. Chris looks, too. Jacob doesn't really look much like Justin. "Haven't seen him around in ages."

"You know how it is. It was the stress. He'll be okay. We're there for him."

"Yeah, yeah," Nick says with a measure of sympathy. Chris can feel Justin positively quivering with held-back indignation. "What was it? Like, speed or coke or something?"

"Oh, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It's under control now--"

"I want some more champagne," Justin says sharply. His face is a little flushed.

"I'll get you some, baby," Chris says magnanimously, and Justin gives him a wide, fake grin and says,

"You're a darling, peach," and kisses him quickly, a brush of parted lips.

His smile is sweet when he straightens up again. Chris realises his mouth is open and closes it.

"Watch it with the PDAs, kid," he says, a little thickly. Nick is looking at them with a raised eyebrow and a little twist to his mouth.

"I'll leave you two lovebirds to it," he says.

 

O-Town is just as bad as Chris remembers, and he spends the entire gig watching Justin. He drinks a lot of champagne.

Justin's dress leaves his back bare, and the long line of his neck is only briefly interrupted by the thin collar. Chris shakes himself out of a half-trance and realises he's been staring hungrily at the tempting spot between Justin's shoulder blades, the smooth, pale skin and the little bumps of his spine.

 

"I think Nick bought our show," Justin says later, in the limo.

"Yeah," Chris says. "I guess he did."

"We're such a funny couple," Justin says a little dreamily. "This little old lady told me that in the ladies' room. I had to say that I find short men hot because they're bobcats in the sack. She kept giving me advice. Like--" he changes the pitch of his voice too a thin, wavery soprano, "--'if you buy lower shoes, you won't overshadow your man.' And speaking of shoes, man, these are fucking killing me--" He slips off his shoes and sits cross-legged on the broad limo seat. The dress he's wearing isn't exactly made for that position. Chris wonders if they have any booze here.

After a little while, Justin yawns and curls up with his head on Chris' shoulder.

"They liked my hair, though," he says.

"Your lack of hair," Chris says and puts his hand between Justin's shoulder blades, right on that spot.

"uhuh," Justin says. "Hey, Chris."

"What?"

"Don't diss me in front of Nick Carter, okay. You were this close to getting a spike heel through your eye," and he holds up his hand, thumb and index finger about half an inch apart.

"But you're so cute when you're angry," Chris says, and Justin sighs and by now he's snuggled up close like some large, lanky pet, the stubble of hair stinging Chris' jaw.

 

"Can I stay here?" Justin asks when they get to Chris' place, and he doesn't wait for Chris to answer, just gets out of the limo.

They stand on the gravel path for a while after the limo drives off. Justin is looking around at the dark garden. Chris is looking at Justin. Maybe Justin is experiencing déjà vu. Maybe if Chris stepped closer and put a hand on his cheek, he'd just yield like he had for Nick Carter.

"It's kinda cold here, dude," Justin says. "Come on." He slings an arm around Chris' shoulder. Chris slides his hand over Justin's back, over the slightly chilly skin.

 

Justin stumbles on Busta in the hall, and he falls against Chris and it's like every romantic comedy Chris has ever seen, and he knows this is how you get the girl.

He pulls Justin forward the few remaining inches and kisses him. Justin seems to open his mouth automatically, like he's made for kissing. He lets Chris back him against the wall, and he hunches down and Chris has kissed tall women before, and tall men, but he's never held Justin against a wall and felt him quiver under his hands.

He strokes Justin's back, and down his sides, and Justin's arms are tight around his neck. He touches Justin's breasts through the thin, slinky material of the dress, almost gingerly, like an awkward teenager getting to second base with the girl down the street, and Justin gasps and arches into the touch, and for a few seconds, it's going the right way, more romantic drama than comedy.

Then Justin snaps his head back and pushes Chris off him with enough violence to make him stagger back and almost fall on his ass.

"Jesus!" he shouts before he sees Justin's face, sees Justin hug himself and turn away. "Justin. Justin?"

"No," Justin says. "Um. No. I'm sorry."

He's not looking at Chris. He seems almost disgusted. Chris straightens his back and tries to figure out something to say. He can't think of anything. He thinks he might be grinding his teeth and makes an effort to relax, but he's wired now, pulled tight and humming with nervous tension. He wants to punch something. He has no idea where all the frustration is coming from, but he thinks it might have been lurking in the back of his mind for a while. Biding its time.

"I'll take a cab," Justin mutters, and he's using his cell phone, disappearing back out the door, walking with his shoulders hunched. Chris knows he should run after him, apologise for whatever he did, tell him it's all right, they can be friends, maybe they can rent a kung fu movie and make pop corn, but right now he can't see past the rejection, even though he tries. It's freezing him to his spot. The door falls closed behind Justin.

 

 

_There's no map   
To human behaviour _

 

She thought the days of Justin calling at four in the morning were over.

"It's four in the morning, Justin," she says. Her head feels like it's full of cotton wool, and she wonders why she didn't turn off her cell phone, and why he has this number.

"Sorry," he says.

"Did you have a fight with Chris or what?" she asks, because that's really the only reason he'd call her. She's always had second billing in the Great American Motion Picture of Justin's life. She has, and being bitter about it won't serve any purpose.

He's quiet on the line. "Justin?"

"Yeah," he says. "No. I don't know. Can I come over?"

"Uh," she says. Rhys is asleep, curled into a ball. She's usually a light sleeper, but the phone doesn't wake her up for some reason. If Britney were to get out of bed, Rhys would wake up, though.

"Brit? Um." She knows he's trying to say 'please', but it was always hard for him to get that out.

"Okay."

"Ten minutes," he says and hangs up.

She tries to be quiet getting out of bed, but Rhys wakes up anyway. "What time is it?" she mumbles.

"Four am. Someone's having an existential crisis again."

"Right. He coming over?" She's stretching and making waking-up noises.

"Yeah. Go back to sleep."

"Too late. You woke me up, bitch," she says and smiles her good morning smile. She doesn't look too put off. Britney kisses her smile and returns it.

 

"So, what did you do this time?" she asks when Justin shows up, looking glum and tired.

"You got coffee?" he just says and heads for the kitchen. Rhys is sitting by the kitchen table, curled in her chair, cradling a cup and jotting down notes and doodles in her sketchbook. "Who are you?" Justin says.

"Who are you?" Rhys says, glancing up briefly.

"Justin, this is Rhys, Rhys, this is Justin," Britney says quickly.

"Hey!" Justin says. "You told her?"

"Yeah."

"It's not a big deal," Rhys says. She's drawing a quick sketch of Justin, Britney sees; long legs, shaved head and scowl all in place. "You're not the first sex change ever, you know."

"Yeah? Are you one?" he says snidely.

"No, I'm Canadian," she says and draws a goatee on her comic Justin. Then she picks up her sketchbook and cup and says, "I'm going back upstairs."

"Okay," Britney says.

"Whatever," Justin says. "That your girlfriend?" he asks when Rhys is gone.

"Yeah."

"She's weird."

Britney just raises an eyebrow.

"I'm not weird on purpose," Justin says. "Trust me. I'm completely ordinary."

"Sure. Are you gonna tell me why you're here?" she asks, and she can see him slam the shutters closed. He does that. There are so many things he can't talk about, but wants to. She used to think it was a fascinating game, to try to guess what was going on in his mind. Cat and mouse. Now it makes her tired. "Look--"

"I'm so sick of being a girl, man," he says. He's leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

Yeah, tough shit, she wants to say, but there's no point in antagonising him. She doesn't really want to fight. She can't think of anything to say that wouldn't come out bitchy, though, so she stares at him until he blushes and looks down.

"Sorry, Brit," he mutters. "I'm just not. Made for this."

"I know," she says. She pours him a cup of coffee, and he takes it and looks at it with narrowed eyes. "I didn't put arsenic in it, if that's what you're worried about," she says.

The corner of his mouth curls infinitesimally. "Good to know."

She sits down with her own cup. She's not tired, but she feels interrupted, somehow, as if she'd been in the middle of some life-changing dream when he called.

He takes a quick sip of his coffee and makes a face. Then he shrugs and takes another one.

"So," she says. "What's wrong?"

He stares into his cup some more. "I think Chris is, like, in love with me or something."

She blinks theatrically at him, but he doesn't look up until she says, "You only just noticed?"

"It was kinda hard to miss," he says. She taps her fingers on the table - ten, nine, eight, seven-- "What do you mean, only just noticed?"

"That was kinda hard to miss, too, Justin."

"I missed it," he says. He notices her pointed silence and protests, "I'm not stupid."

"Just not very smart." It's getting light outside, a bleak and tired kind of light. A shiver is insistently dancing up and down her spine. "You're a little..."

"What?" he says, but he doesn't sound annoyed, more resigned to getting bitched out. He's pale, she sees, not the least hint of a tan. He's told her that his agent tells him not to tan. He's not wearing makeup.

"Self-absorbed, maybe," she says, since it's apparently Honest Hour. "A little dense."

"Thanks, Brit," he mutters.

"No problem. Always ask the ex for honest opinions on character flaws."

He's looking out the window, his eyes gleaming with grey, broken light. He's cradling the cup in his hands, as if he's hoarding the warmth.

"So, did Chris, like, tell you about it? Throw you down on the sofa? Hump your leg?"

He shoots her a wry glance. "He pushed me against the wall," he says.

"All rough and manly?" she says and waggles an eyebrow at him, but he looks away and doesn't smile. "Hey, it's not like he can, like, force you. And you like him."

"We're buddies."

"Sure."

"We are."

"Yeah, I know. But you guys have been--" She waves her hand vaguely. She can't really come up with a good word for Justin's relationship with Chris. "Ambiguous? Something. For just about ever."

"Have we?"

"Don't tell me you haven't thought about it."

But he looks down and doesn't answer, and she wonders if he really can be that oblivious.

He probably can.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"Look--" He takes a sip of coffee, screws up his face. "It's cold," he says. "I don't want things to change."

"They already did, Justin."

"No fucking shit," he says, a little testy. "He's my best friend. I don't wanna lose that. I mean, I won't stay like this forever. Mom said I can change back at any time. And then what, you know? And--"

"Wait, wait," she interrupts, because maybe this will be easy and she can get him out of his funk sometime this year. "--that's the problem? That you think he won't, what, like you when you're not a chick anymore? Cause let me tell you, I don't think it matters to--"

"It's not that. Okay? It's not."

"Then what?" She forces the frustration down, because if she lets it slip, he'll clam up and she'll be back to square one and they really will still be here next year. "Then what is it?"

"I don't know! It's like. It means something, you know? Something." He tries to drink his coffee again; he's forgotten that it's cold. "Fuck."

"I'll make some more." She takes his cup and empties it in the sink. "Do you want me to talk you into it or out of it?" she asks. She's measuring spoons of coffee grounds into the filter - one, two, three, four - and she can't see him. Maybe it'll be easier for him to talk to her back.

But he stays quiet, and she turns around. He's rubbing his forehead, looking like seven bad years.

"Justin?" she says. He chews on his lower lip. "Hey."

"I'm not. Um. I don't--" She takes the few short steps over the floor between them and hugs him. He leans against her, presses his face against her chest and wraps his arms around her.

"Hey," she says again. "It's okay."

"'S not," he mumbles against her dressing gown. "It's fucked up."

"What do you want?" she asks. "I can't wave a magic wand and make it go away. Any of it."

"Tell me what to do," he says and leans back enough to meet her eyes. She's always loved his eyes. She used to write bad poetry about them when she was twelve. He was an obnoxious brat, but when he looked at her, she was all a-flutter. She remembers using the word 'cerulean'. Those were the days.

"Well, I can't tell you what to do," she says. What colour is cerulean, anyway? Dark blue? Silver blue? His eyes are just blue. "I can tell you what I'd do."

She strokes the rough stubble on his head. His curly hair, too. Did she ever write a poem about angelic curls?

"What?" he asks. He's pushing his head against her hand, like a big cat. She remembers what she loved about him. She supposes she still does love him. Why else would she be here, letting him whine, when she could be upstairs with her arms around Rhys, who wouldn't be caught dead whining.

She's moved on, though. So she says, "I would go back to Chris', apologise for yanking his chain - which you probably did, don't fucking argue. And ask him what the hell he wants. How about that?"

"But--" He pulls back and runs his own hand over his scalp. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I want."

"I can't help you with that. But I think you can trust Chris to not fuck with your head. Well, probably. Most likely. Almost definitely."

"You think?"

"I think he loves hard." He looks at her curiously, and she realises she's sounding like her mother. "Whatever. You should figure this stuff out on your own. I'm not fucking Jane magazine."

"I know, I know." He yawns and rubs his eyes, and the coffee is ready, but she thinks they won't be drinking it.

"I'm gonna go back to bed now and apologise to Rhys for getting up at four in the morning to listen to my ex whine about his boy problems."

"Can I crash here for a couple of hours?" he asks, and she nods.

She turns off the coffee machine.

"Britney?" he says when she turns to say goodnight or good morning.

"What?"

"Thanks, man," and he gets up and pulls her into a hug. Then he kisses her, lightly on the mouth.

"Go sleep," she says.

She goes back upstairs, and Rhys wakes up again when she gets into bed. She kisses her and curls up next to her, and she's relieved that she doesn't wish it was Justin in her bed.

 

 

_Boy sees, boy takes, boy hooked  
And the subject's closed  
Worst case scenario becomes real _

 

It's no better in the morning. Chris sits on his porch steps with a cup of coffee and a bagel. The dogs are playing in the back yard, glimpses of ears and backs in the high grass. Carefree little fuckers. Being a dog wouldn't be half bad a deal, really.

Regret is a one-way street, so he's not letting himself think about it. There's a moratorium on the Justin-thoughts today, he decides.

The sneaky little bastard's lurking in every corner of the house, though. Oh no, there's the couch! Justin likes sitting on that couch, looking at the garden, drinking beer and talking trash. Oh no! There's the hall! What happened in the hall last night? Oh no! There's the living room! So many nights spent hanging out there, in front of the TV, just the two of them. Goddamn.

Ahh, and there's the regret again. What if, what if I hadn't, what if I did, why did I do that, why didn't I. Familiar.

He whistles at the dogs and they rattle up the steps with their big goldfish eyes sparkling with energy. Chris feels about as energetic as a wet dishrag.

"Yup, it's true. You guys were right," he tells them. "I need a lobotomy."

They look at him expectantly and he gets up and lets them inside. He can kill all of ten minutes feeding them.

 

 

_And you can moan about your worries  
You can howl at your regrets _

 

He stands inside his door and tries to remember when he last was home alone. He imagines that the house has started smelling stale, like a crypt. That's stupid, though. He's here all the time. Just never alone. Now he can't think of anyone to call. That's just as stupid. He has friends. But JC is in LA, Lance is in Mississippi, Joey's visiting his family in New York. He just saw Britney and Chris is ... Chris.

He doesn't have any more friends who are the kind of friends you have to tell when you turn into a girl.

"I bet Nick Carter would be happy to hear from me," he says out loud, but his voice echoes in the hall, and he stops talking.

He wanders into the living room and turns on the TV. Commercials, commercials, commercials, infomercials for a change, commercials, news, commercials, some old black and white movie he doesn't recognise, commercials, more news, financial news. Amazing. He doesn't even know himself how many channels he has, and still there's nothing on.

The kitchen is shiny chrome and grey and white tiles. He hasn't used it in a while. It's so clean he could lick food off the floor. He stares at the complicated pattern of grey nuances and pictures himself licking the pristine tiles. Maybe wearing the Gaultier dress from last night. It would be a lot like really expensive porno. The dress is black silk, with a slit up one side all the way to his hip. If he bent down, the smooth silk would probably slide aside, and if he wasn't wearing underwear, it really would be porn. He has a bunch of porn like that. The guys gave him a bag of tapes for his eighteenth birthday. He can't jerk off to it, though, because it just seems impolite. Like going to a museum and jerking off in front of the Degas nudes.

He thinks about getting out some of his everyday porn and jerking off, and remembers, as soon as the thought has formed, that he doesn't have anything to jerk anymore. It's been almost five months, and he still keeps forgetting. He'll crawl out of bed in the morning and find himself standing in front of the toilet bowl.

Sometimes he touches himself, even now, but it's not the same. There seems to be some sort of trick to it that he hasn't figured out, and he wonders how the hell he ever managed to get any chicks off before. Dumb luck, probably. And his tongue. He's good at that. No complaints. Now he knows what it feels like from the other side.

He goes to his bedroom and lies on the bed. It's a king size, and he takes up roughly one sixth of it. It's a bed designed for orgies. He has a fuzzy, well-pickled memory of rolling around on it with a number of big-breasted, small-waisted girls. Maybe three. Four. There are no details. He threw a party here when he got his high school diploma, and the girls just showed up. He suspects Chris or Joey was behind it. Or both.

He wonders how much fun it was for the girls. If they were hookers or just hapless fans. It occurs to him, suddenly, that this whole madness might just be God's whacked-out plan to get him to treat women better. Well, it happens in movies all the time.

He turns onto his side and gives himself a mental slap. He knows plenty of people who treat women worse, and they haven't turned into girls, have they?

He wants to ask Chris about it. Chris might have an explanation. If he doesn't have one, he'll make one up on the spot and have Justin laughing in ten seconds flat.

He reaches for the phone and has his finger on the speed dial before he remembers that the last time he saw Chris, he pushed him away and ran out the door.

"I am a moron," he says out loud, just to make sure all of him hears it. Jesus Christ. He couldn't have stayed? This is Chris. "Moron, moron, moron."

He doesn't pick up the phone again, though.

 

 

_You, me, and destiny  
Guess that it was never meant to be _

 

"Do you guys think I have an addictive personality?" Chris asks his dogs. Busta is asleep in his lap and doesn't answer. Korea is somewhere looking for dust bunnies and doesn't answer. "Y'all are a lot of help, too."

The moratorium has been broken and reassigned at least fifty-seven times since morning. He thinks he's getting better. It took him five weeks to stop thinking about Dani every time he moved from one room to another and was faced with a memento he hadn't seen in the last ten minutes.

Maybe he should just find a good brick wall and bang his head against it for half an hour. Or he could call Justin - whom he's not thinking about right now - and beg.

Begging didn't work with Dani.

 

 

_And I went crazy again today,   
Looking for a strand to climb   
Looking for a little hope _

 

Justin calls Lance later in the day. He's been a jerk to Lance a lot, too, but Lance is a jerk right back, so that's okay.

"What is it now?" Lance says.

"Nothing," Justin says. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"What about?" Lance says suspiciously.

"Nothing. Like, just hang out. Buddies."

"Right, buddies," Lance says dryly, and Justin wonders when they stopped being buddies.

Because he's having a bad day, he just asks Lance flat out.

"I don't know," Lance says. "I guess it just happened. I'm in Orlando. I can come over."

Lance does come over, and they watch chick flicks and eat pizza. Lance is a big old sap and cries over Shadowlands. Justin misses Chris, but it's pretty cool to hang out with Lance.

Then Lance looks at him and says, "What happened with Chris?" in the exact same tone of voice Britney used. How transparent am I? Justin thinks and says,

"nothing."

"Don't even, Timberlake. You two have been joined at the hip for years. Chris this, Chris that, Chris any time, any way. Now you're sitting at home on your own, moping--"

"I am not moping--"

"--ergo, there is trouble in paradise. What did he do, come on to you?"

"Jesus--"

"You didn't hit him, did you? Cause I think we've had enough of that."

"I didn't. It's not a big deal. Really. And nothing like that."

"Whatever you say, Justin," Lance says patiently, and Justin knows he knows, but he's going to let it go. Sometimes, Lance can be surprisingly easygoing.

 

He calls JC in the evening, but he just gets the answering machine. He calls Joey, but Joey is going out.

"Why don't you come? We can boogie, man."

"I think I partied enough last night," Justin says. "And I'm not flying to New York just to get drunk with your sorry ass."

"Hung over, huh?"

"Yeah."

"That sucks. You get that shit worse now when you're a chick?"

"Yeah. It's a horror. Sucks to be me."

"I'll think about you, buddy. Though, if you ever wanna go out, I'm game. I mean, you cramp my style, but it's a small price to pay."

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that."

 

He watches a rerun of Waterworld. He saw it with Chris the last time, and they made fun of Kevin Costner's hair and decided they should get one of those catamarans one day.

Then he calls Chris.

"Hello?"

He hangs up.

Chris has caller ID, of course. "Moron," he mutters, and calls again.

"What are you doing?" Chris says.

"Sorry."

"Justin--"

"I'm sorry," he says quickly, before Chris can say anything more. "Okay? I'm sorry. I freaked out."

"Weirdo," Chris says. He doesn't sound like he's pissed off. Justin can almost pretend he sounds, what? relieved. There's a little pause, and Justin is trying to come up with something intelligent and sensitive to say when Chris clears his throat and says, "You wanna come over?"

The relief washes over Justin, and he doesn't think, just says, "yeah," and it's not until after, when he's hung up, that he starts worrying. He runs up to his bedroom and stands in his walk-in closet for ten minutes, his brain spinning and weaving, hamster wheel of thoughts and suggestions and rejections.

He wants to put on the pretty dress, the one he's only worn once and won't wear in public again, but then it'll be weird, because he can't go over to his best friend's house wearing a dress that made Joey spill coffee in his lap and JC grin and touch the black silk clinging to Justin's side, softly and reverently. "It's pretty," he said, but Joey said, "That's a fuck me dress if I ever saw one, man." That's what it is, too, Justin thinks and hangs it back in the closet.

He wears old jeans that are tight and soft and hug his hips in a way he would have noticed in another girl. "Subtle," he tells himself. "Subtle does it." Then he feels like an idiot and finds a t-shirt that isn't quite as tight as most of the ones Britney got for him.

He leaves his big, white, empty house and drives across town to Chris' old house with its overgrown garden and the back porch that leaks because Chris never got around to having someone fix it.

He doesn't park in the drive. Instead he drives a little past the gate and just pulls up to the curb. Probably a bad idea - Chris just has to live in this neighbourhood, doesn't he, where you can't really leave your Mercedes just standing around. But fuck that.

He walks around the house, and even though he knows he's being an idiot again - cameras, anyone? Just like the caller ID - he loses his nerve and flops down on the ratty old couch. The garden is dark and full of whispers and sighs of branches moving and leaves fluttering and little critters running around in the ancient bushes. Chris loves his garden. He won't let a gardener anywhere near it. It's a stalker's haven, but when did Chris ever worry about that. Justin has a lawn, and five slender palm trees in a row on it.

The door opens and Chris says, "What are you sitting out here for, you nut?"

"I don't know," Justin says.

"You coming in?"

"Okay."

In the hall, before he's even taken his sneakers off, Chris touches his shoulder lightly and says, "Justin--"

Justin turns around quickly and reaches for him. Now that they're right here, in the cluttered hall with the mess of shoes and the dogs' leashes and the coats in thick bundles on chairs and hooks, it's all clear in his head. Chris is perfectly still in his arms, and he turns his head and presses his lips against the side of Chris' face.

He can feel his heart speed into a frenzy of fluttering little beats. He's scared, he realises. Of what? He leans back and looks at Chris. He has to look down, because Chris is, like, a foot shorter. Chris looks back, and Justin remembers a fantasy he used to have, back when he was a horny boy and had to jerk off at least once a day, of Chris looking at him with those dark eyes, looking up at him like that.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"It's okay," Chris says, "I mean, it's no big deal, you freaked out. It happens. I'm not gonna--"

"I want you to do it again," Justin says. He sounds a little breathless to himself. It feels a little like that, too, like he's forgotten how to breathe.

"You--" Chris starts, but he cuts off and blinks and just says, "c'mere," and puts his hand on Justin's face, gently, and Justin bows his head to meet him. Chris' other hand goes on his hip and Chris' mouth is gentle and just a little hesitant, as if Chris is afraid Justin might break from just kissing. Justin feels it, feels the kiss, and he's not breaking. Chris says something, right into the kiss, something Justin can't hear, just feel on his lips and tongue, and he can't help smiling, but that's just like Chris who wouldn't know how to shut up if he got a manual. He tries to pull back to say what? but Chris is hanging on to his neck and keeping him where he is, and - whoah - not so gentle anymore. Justin almost jerks back, almost, because he remembers the last time, now, the way Chris had touched him and turned his insides hot and shivery. Not just remembering - feeling all that again, the molten slide of heat downward, the sudden ache that's needy and strange and always in the wrong place now, hidden away, somehow.

He tears loose and tries to say something, maybe wait, I don't know how to do this, but it just sounds like a tiny, breathy whisper: "wait-- Chris, Chris. Wait--" and Chris is staring at him, just like that, wild-eyed and flushed and his mouth is wet, like Justin's own is. Justin opens his mouth to say what he means, whatever it is, but Chris beats him to it and says,

"You don't have to. You don't have to explain."

"What?" Justin says, because Chris seems to be on a completely different page.

"It's okay," Chris says, and the wild look is gone from his eyes and they're flat and brown again, a little less manic than usual.

"I want to be a boy again," Justin blurts, "I want to. I want to. I don't--"

"What?" Chris says this time. "What are you talking about?"

Justin smooths his hands down his sides, hips, thighs, the soft curves there under the thin t-shirt and the worn jeans. "This. This, I don't know what to do with this."

Chris blinks, and he doesn't understand, Justin can tell, but he doesn't know how to explain it. "What. Do you--" Chris says, and Justin says,

"I want you to. I told you."

Chris looks at him for a moment longer, with a little twist to his mouth, like he's about to call Justin's bluff. No bluff, Justin thinks and tries to look like he's thinking that.

"Come on," Chris says and nudges at him a little, safe poke in the side. "We're standing on my shoes."

 

Chris goes to the living room, but stops just inside the door. "What are we doing?" he asks. It seems like he's asking the room rather than Justin. Justin is sure that the room has just about as much of a clue as he does.

"I don't know, I just--" he starts, tentatively, but he snaps his mouth shut when Chris turns to him and asks, a little sharply,

"What do you want?"

Taken aback, Justin says, "I just missed you," which is the truth. Maybe not all of it, but true, nevertheless.

"It's been like twenty-four hours, Justin," Chris says, and there's already a little smile hiding under his serious face.

Justin opens his mouth to shoot back, I'm surprised you didn't crack before I did, when he realises that Chris is a lot worse than he is at waiting, and Chris didn't crack.

He stares at Chris and tries to think of something to say that wouldn't be too needy or too stand-offish or too casual. A thought strikes him. "Dude," he says, because it's a funny thought, pretty funny, all things considered. "I'm not really a chick."

"Yeah, I know," Chris says.

"No, I mean--" It's hard to explain. He just knows it's there. "You're doing that thing. You're doing the same thing I'm doing, aren't you? You're trying to figure me out."

"I'm trying to figure you out."

"Yeah. Like, looking at me like so and going, 'hmmm, maybe she's not really into it or maybe I said something to hurt her feelings, maybe she really came to ask me about the car.' You know."

"What should I do, then?" Chris says, but he's smiling now, for real. "Be like, 'Hey, baby, wanna fuck?'"

"Well," Justin says, and thinks about it. "I guess. Yeah. Like, maybe you don't have to be crude about it, but yeah."

"Hey baby, wanna come up to my room? I've got these etchings..."

"Chris--"

"Hey baby, you want some sweet lovin' tonight?"

"Dude--"

"Hey baby, want me to rock your world?"

"Jesus Christ," Justin says, and yells, "yeah, you moron!"

 

 

_I saw your dreams and infatuated  
With this freedom  
You say the words and I could be them _

 

There are a lot of steps in this staircase, Chris notes. Justin's hand is a little sweaty in his. It feels strange to lead him up like this. Chris never thought Justin would be his blushing bride.

I didn't just think that, he thinks and shoots a glance over his shoulder. Justin looks serious and concentrated, as if walking takes all of his attention.

He wants to ask again, ask something like "Are you sure?" But that's annoying, and he doesn't want Justin to stomp off in disgust. Chris is trying very hard not to be annoying. He turns around and Justin is two steps behind him. Like this, they're the same height.

"Hey," Chris says.

"Hey," Justin says, and Chris kisses him, just to scan the weather that way. Shoop, shoop, it's in his kiss, he thinks randomly. Justin is eager and the kiss is long and slow and nasty and Chris has to fight to stay upright and breathing.

\--and then the weather. Bright and sunny again in the Kirkpatrick residence after a period of heavy rains--

"Upstairs," he says.

"Okay," Justin says and smiles.

 

 

_He spends the afternoon  
Between your thighs  
How's that for gratitude _

 

He sits down on the bed and hides his shaking hands. Whenever Chris isn't touching him, he feels strange. Naked, even though he's still in jeans and t-shirt.

Then Chris leans over him and kisses him again, and it's okay. He wonders if the mood swings came with the body, or if he's always been like this and just never noticed.

Chris' bed is messy and there are dog hairs on the sheets, but it's soft and welcoming. He scoots backwards until he's roughly in the middle, and Chris crawls after him. There's the fantasy thing again, Chris' eyes and his weird, round face and the expression that's serious and almost too intense. Justin wants to close his eyes, but he doesn't. He might miss something.

Chris hovers above him, and Justin wants to pull him down, make him do something now, but then Chris says, softly, "Do you-- I mean. You do know that. You do know that I wouldn't-- That I love you, right?" and Justin does close his eyes then, to think about it. "Justin?" Chris says and he sounds nervous.

"I know," Justin says and looks at the swirling red and black on the insides of his eyelids. "Yeah."

"Cause I do, you know."

"Yeah." He opens his eyes. Chris is looking at him. He looks nervous, too, and Justin reaches up and pulls him down. Chris on top of him is heavy and warm and good, the kind of good you want more of even when it's almost too much. I can do this, he thinks.

Then Chris touches his face and his shoulder and his breast, and moves a little, and Justin feels his dick against his hip and can't breathe. Chris stops. Justin pulls in a great breath and closes his eyes again and relaxes one muscle at a time. When he opens his eyes again, Chris is about to say something, and he stops it with his mouth and his tongue and his hands on Chris' back. Chris licks his mouth and his jaw and his neck, and strokes his breasts until he's arching his back and not caring about things that might hurt and words that might hurt. He thinks he'll miss the breasts when he gets his old body back, the breasts and maybe that strange achey feeling that spreads like slow heat through his body, diffuse and less concentrated than it was when he was a boy, making him feel almost like he might after a really long workout, only not at all.

Chris pushes against him, and he realises that he's spread his legs and let Chris sink in between them, and it feels good to have him there, good with the pressure through the jeans. With Chris' hands sliding under his shirt, over his breasts - no bra because he thought, he thought, he was thinking about this, he thinks - it's so good that he gasps and can't stop his body from doing a little shimmy, which is this close to writhing. He gasps again when Chris pushes his shirt up and kisses his ribcage and up from there, his breasts, nipples, and it gets a little blurry, but he's definitely writhing now, hating his jeans, because they're not protection all of a sudden, but a hindrance, and then Chris looks up at him with eyes that are liquid black and says, "wow," softly.

"Wow," Justin agrees and lifts his hips a little.

 

 

_I treat him like a lady  
I treat him as I would he unto me _

 

This is hard to do, hard, because he can't decide what to concentrate on, what part. That's what he gets for having the attention span of a gnat, even though he'd really have to be insane not to be focused on Justin right now, he can't decide whether he loves Justin's face or his breasts or his smooth belly or the promise between his legs the most, he can't decide where to put his hands or his lips. And wherever he does put them, Justin sighs and shudders, and there's clearly nothing stopping them, except too many clothes.

He pushes Justin's t-shirt up even more, and Justin catches on and raises his arms over his head, and that was easy enough, and there's so much skin to touch, hot, smooth skin. Justin has thrown his head back, and when Chris looks up, he's captivated by Justin's throat and stares and then kisses the unbroken column of it, tries to remember what it looked like when Justin wasn't a girl. Beard stubble and Adam's apple, not bad. Chris can't decide what he'd like better. He thinks it might not matter at all, even though Justin is almost painful to look at right now, almost.

He runs his fingers down to the waistband of Justin's jeans, and Justin pushes his hips up, his hands scrabbling over the sheets. Chris scoots back and bows down, kisses the lines of Justin's ribs, runs his tongue over the ridges of bone. He can feel Justin's heart flutter under the tight skin between the ribs, hectic beats against his mouth.

Justin moves his legs restlessly, and Chris fumbles with the buttons on his jeans, trying not to yank at them. Justin tries to help, and there are too many hands, too many fingers and Chris catches Justin's hand and squeezes it, and Justin sighs and lifts his hips to let Chris pull off the jeans. Underneath them is diaphanous white lace and the dark shadow of pubic hair.

When he slips his hand over the thin panties and down between Justin's thighs, Justin stiffens and pulls in a shuddering breath, and Chris whispers, "okay?" because Justin seems indecisive, maybe even afraid. That's strange and wrong, and Chris wonders, selfishly, if he'll have to back off now. It suddenly occurs to him to ask, "Have you done this before?"

Justin breathes deeply and relaxes under his hands and says, "Yeah."

Chris looks down, at his own hand dark on Justin's white panties, at Justin's ribs outlined starkly under his skin every time he pulls in a breath. He's got his eyes squeezed shut and he's grabbed two fistfuls of sheet, and it could look hot and naughty, but also like he's hanging on for dear life. He's long and lean and strong, and Chris can't think of anything he'd like more right now than to rip off the scrap of lace that Justin's still wearing and just bury himself in that body, and hope he could die with those legs wrapped around him, but Justin looks strangely fragile for all his strength, fragile and young and it feels like, like, almost like sacrilege to think about fucking him. Chris doesn't like to make the distinction between fucking and making love a big deal, because it just seems pretentious and schmaltzy, but there's an occasion for everything, he figures.

He wants to tell Justin about that, maybe. Tell him that this will be one for the history books, but when he crooks his fingers under the lace to pull the panties down, he finds himself unusually inarticulate. "You're. You're--" he mutters, and Justin tightens his fists around the sheets. "Justin, whoah--" and then he just gives up on words.

 

 

_Everything is beautiful  
And nothing hurts _

 

He is naked and hot and aching for something more than this, and Chris is still wearing all his clothes. He pulls at shirt hems and belt buckles, but his fingers are stupid with lust, and his mouth wants skin to press against.

"Whoah," Chris says again, and pulls his t-shirt over his head, unbuckles his belt, yanks his pants off, and then they're skin against skin and Chris' hand is between his legs and he bucks, and gasps and Chris' mouth on his catches the gasp, muffles the cry, and he remembers, randomly, that Britney told him once, when they were in bed and she just wanted to sleep, that men don't know the meaning of the words 'bad sex', but that they probably don't get half of 'good sex', either. He's tried the bad. Has he ever.

"Just--" he pants at Chris, "just go on--" He could give the good a shot now.

He's hot all over, breaking into a sweat, and his fingers hurt from fisting the sheet, and he realises he's chewing on his lower lip and that it will hurt later, but not right now. It's taking too long and his hips rise off the bed on their own account, but Chris puts a cool hand on his stomach and pushes him back down. He can hear his own breaths run harsh and raw in his throat.

Then Chris is pushing his legs apart, and there's a second when he still fights it, when his body seems to fight it, even when he's telling it to give it up, and Chris frowns and hesitates. Justin tries to tell him again to just do it, but his mouth is numb where it isn't smarting, and he can only growl throatily and finally spread his legs and pull Chris down and hold him there.

 

 

_While I crawl into the unknown  
Cover me  
I'm going hunting for mysteries  
Cover me _

 

He can see it on Justin's face. Dani was sneaky about that, and he never knew when she came. But Justin's face goes blank with surprise. Chris leans down and kisses his open mouth. Justin's legs are wrapped around him. He can't remember when he last felt this good.

Justin's mouth moves into a smile, and he's still moving under Chris, little shimmies. He's damp and hot and seal-sleek, and Chris wants to stay here forever, feeling just like this, but forever's an empty word and there's an end to everything--

"But we can always do it again," he mumbles, and Justin throws his head back and grins and says,

"We can, yeah."

 

 

_I'll be brand new  
Brand new tomorrow  
A little bit tired  
But brand new _

 

"You're just. You're so," Chris mumbles. He says it with his mouth pressed against Justin's back, and it sounds like a compliment.

Justin twists around so he can see Chris. They share a smile, dazed, just-got-laid grins.

"I'm all sweaty," he says, as a casual observation.

"Yup," Chris says.

"I don't think I have the energy to take a shower, though."

"We can shower in the morning."

He's sleepy now, and Chris is leaning against his shoulder, heavy and warm and still sticky with sweat. He thinks he'll be okay.

 

 

_You look so fine   
I want to break your heart   
And give you mine _

 

He can't sleep. He's sleepy and sticky and his body feels heavy and sweet and slow like honey. But he can't sleep, because the moratorium has been lifted and the million jumbled Justin-thoughts are falling over themselves, pushing and elbowing each other feverishly to get theirs said.

Justin fell asleep quickly. Chris watched his eyes flutter shut and listened to his breathing slow. It's late, but there's a streetlight outside the bedroom window, and no one bothered to pull the curtains. Usually, the light annoys Chris. Not tonight. It paints Justin in dirty golden light. Beautiful. Sort of like an artsy erotic photograph. If Chris were an artsy erotic photographer, this is what he'd take pictures of. He could call it Justin asleep in my bedroom. Maybe that's too revealing, although fairly Mary Ellen Mark-ian. Justin asleep in streetlight. That has a poetic ring to it.

Justin shivers and mutters in his sleep, and Chris covers him with the sheet. It makes the view less breathtaking, but there's nothing stopping Chris from lying down next to him and wrapping an arm around his waist and letting his skin get its Justin-fix next.

Justin is big, he's still big like the man he used to be, although a little less bulky. They're a horrible match, really, Chris thinks. He's too small to be spooning a woman this size, but who the hell cares. He wonders who else Justin's slept with, if they were bigger.

That leads to late-night jealousy that Chris stomps out quickly. He curls closer and kisses Justin's shoulder. They'd better have treated him well.

Asshole magnet, Justin called himself, though, and Chris strokes his warm skin and thinks about ways to kill people.

 

Justin doesn't go back home for over a week.

"We're like-- we're outside time," he mumbles into Chris' ear one night when they're curled up and twined together on the old couch on the back porch, Justin's skirt still pushed up to his waist, Chris' fly still unbuttoned.

Chris laughs and kisses his temple. "I don't think so. But we can afford a little time off."

The dogs come running up the steps, yapping and panting, and they want to share the couch, off course. So much for time off, but it's very domestic and familiar in a way that makes Chris' breath seize for just a moment. Then Justin laughs, that wild, hoarse laugh that didn't change with the rest of him, and it's good.

 

"I think we should talk to the guys," Justin says after another week.

"You think?"

"I just said so. That's what I was thinking. Like, tell them." He's stretched out on the couch, lazy, sated, barely covered by a pink afghan Dani left behind. It has the ugliest pattern known to man, in mint green and brown, and Chris never once stopped mocking her for it. Of course it's still here. Justin looks good in it, though.

"You look good in that," Chris says.

"This is an ugly fucking thing. What are we gonna tell them, then?"

"That we're. That we're. What we are." That was articulate, Kirkpatrick. Try again and think first, please. Funny how his Inner Voice of Reason always sounded like Miss Czuryzciewicz, grammar teacher, third grade. She had honed her sarcasm to a fine art.

"I guess 'dating' should cover it. Kinda."

"We're staaah-crossed lovers, pumpkin."

"That, too."

 

"You're what?" Lance says.

"Oh, wonderful!" JC chirps and hugs them both.

"Yeah, cool," Joey says.

Chris lets out the breath he's been holding in - when did he get this desperate for their approval? - and says, lightly, "Anybody want a beer?" Justin wraps his long arms around his neck and kisses his cheek. The rest of them stare wide-eyed.

"Are you gonna be all, like, disgustingly cute now?" Joey says.

"I think they're just cute," JC says. "Really. I always thought you were--"

Lance groans. "Do you guys ever think?"

Laughter.

Joey flings a soothing arm around his neck. Chris hands out beer.

 

 

_Violently happy  
I'll get into trouble _

 

Justin knows, the second the biggest of them says, "That's a whole lotta woman for you, squirt," that they're going to get in trouble. Trouble is Chris versus four large, tattooed guys with muscles on top of their muscles and the apparent brain-body mass ratio of a Brontosaur.

Chris stops and turns slowly. "Say what?" he says, softly.

"Does she carry you to bed?" First Brontosaur's slightly-smaller sidekick chips in.

"At least she doesn't have to use a lever and plane like your wife," Chris says, and throws the first punch.

Sometimes Justin thinks Chris has spent at least two lifetimes as a bullterrier. He fights dirty. It's not enough to be fast and ruthless and fierce, though, when you're that outnumbered, and Chris should know better. Justin kicks off his heels - he's not fighting in those things - and aims a textbook punch at the nearest hoodlum.

"FUCK!" he howls, because his hand just isn't what it used to be, thinner bones, thinner skin, and it fucking hurts like a sonovabitch, and he mutters, "fuck," again just before the hoodlum turns and backhands him across the face.

"oh shit--" he hears faintly, but he's too busy being in pain, because he bounces against the wall, bright flash of blue in front of his eyes, and his teeth click shut around the tip of his tongue, and that's bright red agony, and in comparison, the rough wall tearing stripes out of his back is nothing at all.

He can hear Chris' voice clearly, though, screaming high-pitched and aggravated, "Y'all come back here, you chickenshit losers, you come back and let me kick your asses--"

A brief, blessed silence. The world is filtering back. Maybe he'll live, after all.

"Justin? Justin?" Hands on his face, and when he opens his eyes and squints, he can see Chris' face, bloody but whole. "Justin? Baby? Are you okay?"

"I'm good," he lies. Mother of god, but his mouth hurts. "Nothing broken, 's okay. Don't call me baby."

"I'm gonna get you to a hospital, okay?" Chris says, and Justin shakes his head. It only feels like it's going to fall off. He's pretty sure it's still screwed on tightly.

"No, I'm fine." He pats the wet asphalt next to him. "Gimme my shoes, man."

 

His head clears up after a while, and it's not so bad. He doesn't feel sick or anything, it just really fucking hurts, but Chris isn't looking much better.

"We need to get this cleaned up," he says and touches Chris' split eyebrow.

"And I thought it would do wonders for my thug appeal," Chris says, and it hurts to laugh, too, goddamnit.

"We'll get a house call. Don't think it's a good idea to let this leak, you know?"

 

They lie in bed, a lot later, and his mouth still hurts, and Chris winces every time either of them moves.

"Good fight, though," Chris says. Justin rests his head on his chest. After a while, the throbbing in his head is synchronised with Chris' heartbeat. He tells Chris that. "That's romantic," Chris says, and Justin can't tell if he's being sarcastic.

"You're a nut," he says, and he's not being sarcastic.

"That's what you love about me."

After that, they have to kiss, despite the sting, and Justin licks the cut on Chris' lip, and it feels very kinky and sort of secret and sexy, and his smarting tongue doesn't mind Chris' tongue against it.

"We're not having sex, though," Chris says after a while. "There might be permanent damage."

"No," Justin promises and kisses him again.

 

 

**Epilogue **

 

 

_Possibly maybe probably love _

 

He loves mornings. Mornings are the best time. Justin is a heavy sleeper, and Chris has that half hour or so when he lies awake, curled up in Justin's arms, or plastered along his long, curved back and an arm around his waist. That's how he wakes up this morning, his nose pressed against the back of Justin's neck, the soft stubble there. His hand is wrapped around Justin's chest. Justin likes sex in the morning, and he never minds if Chris wakes him up gently, stroking his breasts through the thin silk of his slip, kissing his neck and shoulders, slowly rubbing his dick against Justin's round ass.

It sinks in quickly even though he just woke up and he hasn't even opened his eyes yet. His hand slides unhindered over smooth expanses of chest, and he jumps - all his muscles make an unscheduled contraction - and Justin wakes up with a muffled "hhmmm-- huh?"

Chris pulls his hand back. "Dude," he says. "Um. Justin."

Justin turns around, and there seems to be so much more of him now, broader, longer, sturdier, and his face is smooth as a girl's, but it's definitely the old Justin, angular and big-nosed and square-jawed.

"What?" he says, and his voice is deeper, but Chris recognises it. It's Justin.

"Check it out, man," Chris says and pokes Justin's solidly muscular shoulder gingerly. "The sex change fairy gave you some stuff back."

Justin looks down and yelps. He kicks the sheet off and stares. He even gropes himself with a hand that's grown longer fingers, broader palm, bigger knuckles. "Fuck," he says with something that can be either relief or dismay. Chris can't tell.

Then he notices that Justin is still wearing that baby blue silk slip and the tiny lace panties he'd put on after they screwed last night - because Justin is a sybaritic creature and says the feel of silk makes him feel all sexy, and who is Chris to argue with that - and they are both looking fairly overtaxed.

Justin is a tall, muscular man with waxed legs and he's wearing lacey underwear and a spaghetti-strapped slip, and it's fucking hilarious.

"What are you--" Justin starts, but then he looks down at himself again and breaks off. "For fuck's sake, man. I'm wearing my girl stuff."

"Why don't you take 'em off?" Chris suggests, and something in the back of his head shoots off warnings, because Justin, quite emphatically, is no longer a girl.

"I don't know," Justin says. He's grinning, and the grin is the same, basically, just a little wider, a little cockier. "I always liked these."

"You look like a dork."

"Yup." The grin stays, and Chris reaches out and slides his hand over the slinky fabric, and it's different with the play of muscle underneath, hard planes instead of gentle curves, but not bad different. He looks up and meets Justin's eyes. They're the same.

He cups the back of Justin's head, pulls him closer, and kissing is sweet and right, and Justin's hands are big and sure on his back, and Justin's mouth is velvet-soft.

Then Chris is being pushed backwards, and he lands on his pile of pillows, and Justin lands heavy and hard-bodied on top of him.

Chris holds him and runs his hand over the sharp-soft stubble on his head, over warm skin, glossy fabric. He pulls the slip up and finds more skin, flexing muscles. Justin gasps into his mouth and rocks his hips in a smooth, fluid motion, and he's definitely not a girl, no, no girls, and it's good, the broadness of his shoulders, the strength in his arms, the sharper angles of his face.

"Is this okay?" Justin says with a crooked smile.

"I didn't suddenly start thinking you were hot because you turned into a girl, kid," Chris says.

"I know," Justin says, but Chris is pretty sure he was worrying about that anyway.

It's good, it's hot, too, but there's a whole new issue of logistics to consider now. Justin still spreads his legs easily and arches his back, though, and Chris licks his abs and their new definition, nuzzles the smaller, sharper curve of his hipbone.

New territory to explore, but it tastes the same, smells the same and Justin's gasps and whimpers sound the same. Chris can still make him go monosyllabic with his tongue. Good to know, he thinks, and then Justin mutters, "You wanna, you wanna, uh. You wanna?"

Gee, let me think about it.

Logistics again, things to think about, but not as different as he thought. Tighter and more resistance, and Justin has to put his legs on Chris' shoulders, which is not completely new, but they didn't get around to doing that much weird stuff, just the usual: kitchen table, the floor in front of the TV, the old couch on the back porch - several times, because there was a heat wave in June and the AC broke, and outside was the only viable option for a while - and once, they did it in the back of Justin's Mercedes, on the leather seats, with one of Justin's feet thrown over the back of the seat, and that one didn't last long, because there is just something insanely hot about a tall, buzz-cut chick half wearing a black silk dress, spread out in the backseat of an expensive German car. Chris is almost sorry he won't be able to indulge in those kinks anymore.

Then again, Justin is now a tall, buzz-cut guy with a face that launched a thousand websites, and he's biting his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head, and on Chris' scale of Hot Shit (Wet Wellington Boot to A Thousand Burning Suns), he's shooting off the chart. It might just be the heat of the moment, though.

Afterwards, Justin cradles him, and it feels good to be here, just as good as before. He wonders if he ever really thought things would change. Justin has been Justin all along.

"Do you miss it?" Justin whispers. "Miss her?"

There's no way to say this without sounding helplessly sappy, but does that really matter when they're sweaty and wrapped around each other and Justin is still wearing the tattered remains of the ill-used nightie? "This is a romantic comedy, I think," he says. "I'm gonna have to say something cute."

"Chris--"

"It was you all along," he says, and Justin smiles, slowly, and it's the same smile it always was.

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics from No Doubt, Headstones, Placebo, Savage Garden, Fiona Apple, Hole, Kim Carnes, Björk, Catatonia, Vaya Con Dios, Garbage


End file.
